I got my annual flu shot and Covid booster last week, which reminded me of how much has changed since the pandemic but also how much has settled back into its new normal.
I’ve been getting Covid vaccines since I was first eligible, and the annual booster the past couple of years. But the Covid booster experience was different this year. Gone are those vaccination cards we guarded with plastic sleeves and took with us everywhere a couple of years ago. Now, it’s just another shot in the arm.
The world is different now, but vestiges of the old world sometimes come back to life.
Like the WMG Anthology Workshop for writers, which fell victim to the pandemic (it’s an in-person workshop, so…). We brought back our smaller in-person workshops last year, but this one is much larger: 40 people. So, it took us longer to be comfortable bringing that one back.
But that time has come.
Here are the details:
The annual WMG Anthology Workshop had long been a must-attend event for writers. But it was one of the many casualties of the pandemic. Now, after years of requests to bring it back, WMG has found a way!
So, in July 2024, the WMG Anthology Workshop will return to Las Vegas—now at Resorts World! Write and submit stories to four professional editors for consideration at 6 cents/word and see them live edit the anthologies! There is no other workshop like this out there, which is why WMG worked so hard to bring it back!
For contracting reasons, we can’t finalize the exact week until February, but the workshop will NOT be held over the 4th of July holiday.
The workshop will last four days, beginning early on Monday and ending at noon on Thursday. There will also be a hospitality room for evening gatherings from Sunday to Wednesday.
Writers will write and submit their stories during late April and May.
For logistical reasons, workshop attendance will be capped at 40 people. The fee for the class is $900. Due to the high demand, you must be fully paid to hold your spot. (Workshop fees are fully refundable up to two months ahead. After that, they are transferrable.)
Don’t miss out on this one-of-a-kind workshop! Reserve your spot today by emailing Dean here [dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com]. (If you have attended an in-person workshop before, simply send the $900 fee to PayPal using this address: dean@wmgpublishingstore.com, then email Dean that you have done so here [dean.wmgworkshops@gmail.com]. He will let you know that the payment was received and that you are on the list.
I can’t emphasize enough how game-changing this workshop is for writers. If as a writer, you want to understand what goes through an editor’s mind when evaluating a story and deciding whether to buy it, there’s no other experience like this out there. It’s such a revelatory experience!
One of the editors you’ll see in action is Kristine Kathryn Rusch. She’s a master editor and a master writer herself. And her latest Diving Universe novel hits shelves on Tuesday, Nov. 14!
If you missed the Ivory Trees Kickstarter, now’s your chance to pick up this fantastic book in ebook, trade paperback or hardcover.
Here’s the synopsis:
Ancient tech draws dangerous unwanted attention in international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Ivory Trees, the thrilling new standalone novel in her award-winning Diving series.
When the discovery of a bunker reveals a treasure trove of ancient artifacts, interested parties throughout the Empire—from collectors to academics to researchers—want a piece of the action. But the finds draw attention from outside the Empire as well. Attention from someone willing to do whatever it takes to outmaneuver the Empire and secure the collection.
Set in Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s expansive Diving Universe, Ivory Trees introduces exciting new characters and events to this powerfully written series, while also offering some tantalizing Easter eggs from previous Diving novels.
As suspense builds to a fevered intensity, this tantalizing new novel mixes the best of heist fiction and space opera and proves Rusch’s place as a master of science fiction.
Get the ebook here, the trade paperback here and the hardcover here.
No matter how much the world changes, one thing remains the same: our love of great fiction!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
We’re very cheery here at WMG headquarters this week. Not only are we all aglow at the incredible support we received from our Kickstarter backers for the 2023 WMG Holiday Spectacular, but we’re also glittering with excitement at the launch of our new WMG Holiday Spectacular online store!
The WMG Holiday Spectacular store joins our other recently launched stores: The Diving Universe store, the Pulphouse Magazine store, and, of course, the WMG online bookstore (aka the Mothership. And we’re having another grand-opening sale this week to celebrate!)
You can save 30% on books, 25% (plus free shipping) on merchandise (US only), and 50% on everything we offer on WMG’s Teachable site.
That 30% off on books goes for every ebook we have for sale at wmgholidayspectacular.com, divingintothewreck.com, pulphousemagazine.com and wmgbooks.com.
That includes the newly released holiday anthologies Crooked Little Christmas, Time Travel Holidays, and Candy Cane Kisses.
And gift cards! You can buy gift cards on the WMG Holiday Spectacular store and give them as gifts to be delivered at the date you choose!
Plus, festive holiday merchandise like blankets, mugs, and puzzles, all at a 25% discount and free shipping (US only)!
Click here to go directly to the WMG Holiday Spectacular store.
And for writers (these make great gifts, too) is the 50% off sale on our WMG Teachable site. That discount also applies to the brand-new Shopify Class as well as the 2024 Advanced Craft Classes.
To learn more about the new class and to read more about the Teachable part of the grand-opening sale, click here.
What a great way to check off your holiday shopping to-do list!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
You already know you can buy books directly from WMG, right? And now we have another brand-new online store for you to shop.
In addition to our main WMG online bookstore (aka the Mothership), and the Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s Diving Universe! And we’re having another grand-opening sale this week to celebrate!
You can save 30% on books, 25% (plus free shipping) on merchandise (US only), and 50% on everything we offer on WMG’s Teachable site.
That 30% off on books goes for every ebook we have for sale at divingintothewreck.com, pulphousemagazine.com and wmgbooks.com. (Right now, we only have ebooks available direct, but later this year we plan to add paper books and some audiobooks, as well.)
Plus, not only do we have the Diving merchandise we included in the Ivory Trees Kickstarter—which ended on Thursday…thank you so much to all who supported it!—but we also have lots of new merchandise available for sale (at a 25% discount!).
And new for this grand opening: gift cards! You can buy gift cards on the Diving store and give them as gifts to be delivered at the date you choose!
Click here to go directly to the Diving store.
You also get another chance to get a discount on back issues of Pulphouse and that fabulous Pulphouse merchandise!
Click here to go directly to the Pulphouse store.
Meanwhile, the majority of our ebook inventory is now available on our WMG bookstore. And all of it is 30% off.
Click here to go directly to the WMG Books store.
Last but certainly not least is the 50% off on our WMG Teachable site. That discount also applies to the recently launched Flash Techniques (where every Monday Dean and Kris will talk about writing craft technique) and the just announced 2024 Advanced Craft Classes.
To learn more about the new class and to read more about the Teachable part of the grand-opening sale, click here.
As you can see from our grand-opening sale, we are very excited about our new stores! Having the capability to do storewide sales on all of our available inventory is something we could never do with our retail partners. And while we’ll continue to offer our books through those venues, we will be focusing more and more on our own stores so that we can offer our readers the best deals possible.
And like my daughter, I sure do love a good sale!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Did you know you can buy books directly from WMG? Well, you can! And we have a brand-new online store for you to shop.
In addition to our main WMG online bookstore, we now have a dedicated store for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. And we’re having a grand-opening sale this week to celebrate!
You can save 30% on books, 10% (plus free shipping) on merchandise, and 50% on everything we offer on WMG’s Teachable site.
That 30% off on books goes for every ebook we have for sale at pulphousemagazine.com and wmgbooks.com. (Right now, we only have ebooks available direct, but later this year we plan to add paper books and some audiobooks, as well.)
Every previously published issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine since our launch in 2018 is available on our Pulphouse store site, as well as all of our Pulphouse books, and, of course, subscriptions (but please note that subscriptions are not included in the grand opening sale).
Plus, not only do we have the Pulphouse merchandise we included in the 2023 Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Subscription Drive on Kickstarter—which ended on Thursday…thank you so much to all who supported it!—but we also have lots of new merchandise available for sale (at a 10% discount!).
Click here to go directly to the Pulphouse store.
Meanwhile, the majority of our ebook inventory is now available on our WMG bookstore. And all of it is 30% off.
Click here to go directly to the WMG Books store.
Last but certainly not least is the 50% off on our WMG Teachable site. That discount also applies to the recently launched Indie Writer’s Products Classes (where you can learn how to turn your series into merchandise) and the just announced Down in the Details classes.
To learn more about the new class and to read more about the Teachable part of the grand-opening sale, click here. (https://deanwesleysmith.com/grand-opening-sale/)
As you can see from our grand-opening sale, we are very excited about our new stores! Having the capability to do storewide sales on all of our available inventory is something we could never do with our retail partners. And while we’ll continue to offer our books through those venues, we will be focusing more and more on our own stores so that we can offer our readers the best deals possible.
And as my husband can attest, I sure do love a good sale!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
My daughter turns 13 this week. And while I can’t quite believe she’s a teenager already, she is taking this harder than I am. She told me this birthday is making her sad. She doesn’t want to be a teenager yet. She doesn’t want all the pressure and responsibility that comes with the teenage years. She said next year, she’d have to get a job already.
I don’t know where this is coming from. It’s certainly not coming from me. The job part is probably coming from the fact that we live in an economically challenged community, like pretty much every tourist town everywhere. The people with money are the ones who visit or have second homes or own the businesses where the majority of the community’s residents work for minimum wage (or these days, the minimum the market will bear). Most of her classmates come from homes that support tourism rather than profit from it. Those kids all need jobs as soon as they can get them.
That makes me very sad. School takes a back seat before these kids even start high school.
The rest of Nola’s anxiety, I can’t fully explain. But it’s something I’ll be working hard to get to the bottom of. She puts far too much pressure on herself sometimes.
It’s frustrating for me that as hard as I work NOT to put pressure on her, to let her enjoy her youth, we’re still here. But, of course, I’m not the only influence in her life. And these days, with as interconnected as our kids are to the world, that pressure is everywhere.
Which is probably why I find myself thinking of one of international bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s most haunting novellas, Coolhunting, which was a Locus Award finalist, and winner of the Science Fiction Age Reader’s Choice Award.
Here’s the synopsis:
Steffie makes her living as a coolhunter—someone who discovers an interesting look and makes it fashion, often overnight. She managed to escape her stifling upbringing, but her sister KD—genetically altered to remain a child—remains trapped.
Steffie left KD behind once. But when KD asks Steffie to help her run away from home, Steffie must decide whether to help or to abandon her sister for a second time.
In celebration of my daughter’s apparently bittersweet birthday, I offer this to you free for one week. Click here to download this powerful novella.
Meanwhile, I’ll be doing my best to make sure my daughter enjoys her birthday. A trip to the trampoline park is just the beginning…
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Well, I was home for a week and now I’m traveling again. I’m making up for the lost travel time due to brain surgery, then the pandemic and the lost pet year.
This time, I’m in Savannah, Georgia, visiting my father and stepmother with my daughter, Nola. We haven’t seen my dad since he flew out for my aforementioned brain surgery in March of 2019.
I’m lucky. I can work from anywhere. Have laptop, will travel, so to speak. The freedom to do that would have seemed like science fiction when I was growing up. Heck, even when I was in grad school.
It’s weird because it has felt the past few years like we’ve been living in an alternate reality. But it also feels in some ways like we’re reliving history, too.
I grew up in the Cold War, where the threat of nuclear holocaust felt very real. The regular air raid drills I experienced in grade school guaranteed that. As did Chernobyl.
And here we are again, with my daughter asking about Russia and their nuclear arsenal and the threats to the nuclear power plants in Ukraine.
My parents couldn’t keep reality from me then and there’s no way for me to keep it from Nola in today’s interconnected world—one which would seem like sci-fi to my past self.
And there’s the paradox. Same old problems, modern high-tech world.
Of course we need an escape!
And I’ve got two options for you there: one to the past and one to the future. I’ve talked about both of them recently (there’s that history repeating itself again) but they end soon, so here’s a reminder.
The Past Crimes Bundle, curated by Dean Wesley Smith, features three WMG books: Fiction River: Hidden in Crime, edited by Kris; Smoke-Filled Rooms: A Smokey Dalton Novel by Kris Nelscott; and Heads Up: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery by Dean.
You can read Dean’s full blog about the bundle and all the other pertinent details here. And if you want to just go straight to the bundle page itself, click here.
But hurry. This bundle ends this Thursday, Aug. 18.
If you prefer to travel to the future instead, there’s the Stars of Sci-Fi Summer book bundle, and WMG has three titles in this jam-packed offering: The Diving Series Box Set: Books 1-3 by Hugo-winning author Kristine Kathryn Rusch; The High Edge: A Seeders Universe Novel by USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith; and Fiction River: Moonscapes, edited by Dean.
It also features titles by Brandon Sanderson and Alan Dean Foster, as well as writers who have graced the pages of WMG projects, including Kevin J. Anderson, Frank Herbert, Robert Jeschonek, Tao Wong, and Leah Cutter.
There are 35 total titles in this bundle ($308 total value), and you can get them all for $18.
Click here to learn more!
Both bundles donate a portion of the proceeds to charity, as well, so you can rest assured you’re helping make the world a better place, right now.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
I’m traveling again this week. This time, I’m on the gorgeous mountain campus of Western Colorado University, where I’m a Lecturer in Publishing for Western’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
I’m a lifelong learner, and I love being on a college campus. The energy that courses through them is palpable. You can just feel all the brain cells firing.
I love being able to share my knowledge with graduate students. Degrees in publishing are relatively new, so it’s an exciting field to be teaching.
And it’s an extension of the teaching I’ve been doing for a decade, but to professionals rather than graduate students, through the workshops and lectures we offer at WMG.
These days, most of our educational offerings are on Teachable. Dean Wesley Smith is our Dean of Teaching (yes, yes, my blog is filled with puns this week). He’s truly a master educator.
And he’s just made a big announcement regarding how to save money on those offerings. You can read all about the sale on his blog by clicking here.
So, hurry on over. One should never stop learning.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
Reading the news these days makes me feel like I’m in some sort of alternate timeline. It’s like the past 40 years never happened and I’m right back to hearing about Russian invasions and nuclear war and World War III.
As a kid growing up in New Jersey, I was doing air raid drills in elementary and middle school much later than many of my peers. New Jersey was home to Bell Labs (now Nokia Bell Labs, but in the ’80s it was Bell Telephone Laboratories until 1984 and then AT&T Bell Laboratories). Bell Labs was considered a major target for a nuclear attack.
So, every few months, there we were, responding to a sound I’ve never heard associated with any other kind of emergency drill and quickly making our way into the hallways to get on our knees, facing the wall, with our heads down in the junction where wall and floor meet and our hands laced over the backs of our heads. I was told at one point that this was because the anus was the safest orifice for nuclear exposure. I suspect that was bull. In reality it was probably more a physical representation of the metaphorical: bend over and kiss your ass goodbye…
Nothing like an apocalypse drill to make an impression on your school day.
And while we did manage to escape the ’80s without triggering an apocalypse, I’ve been drawn to apocalyptic fiction ever since. And space travel. Because I’ve always figured that if we can conquer space travel—true space travel—we’d be smart enough and united enough as a planet to stop threatening each other with nuclear war. At least one can hope…
Naturally, WMG has a book series that addresses all of that. It’s Dean Wesley Smith’s Seeders Universe series and it’s the subject of our latest Kickstarter, the Rescue Two: A Seeders Universe Kickstarter.
This Kickstarter, in case you haven’t checked it out yet, has really taken off, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.
Since, as of this morning, we’ve already hit eight stretch goals, here’s what you will get with any reward you choose:
Ebooks
A Billion Earths: A Seeders Universe Collection
Life of a Dream: An Earth Protection League Novel
Ball of Confusion: An Earth Protection League Novel
The End Might Be Interesting After All (short story collection)
Time for Cool Madness: A Marble Grant Collection
A Case for Aliens (short story collection)
Playing a Hunch: A Poker Boy Collection
The Big Tom: A Pakhet Jones Short Novel
Writing workshops on Teachable (valued at $150 each)
Pop-Up #70: WORLD BUILDING INSIDE OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
Pop-Up #71: WORLD BUILDING INSIDE OUR LOCAL GALAXY SECTOR
Pop-Up #72: WORLD BUILDING INSIDE OUR FULL GALAXY
Pop-Up #73: WORLD BUILDING ON A COLONY PLANET
Pop-Up #74: WORLD BUILDING IN NEAR FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION
Pop-Up #75: WORLD BUILDING IN FAR FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION
Pop-Up #76: WORLD BUILDING IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE FICTION
That’s a galaxy of great stuff with every reward.
Click here to read more about the Kickstarter. But don’t wait. The Kickstarter ends Thursday.
And if you want another out-of-this-world deal that you can start reading right now, check out the Aliens Among Us StoryBundle, curated by Dean.
This bundle includes three WMG titles—Aliens Among Us: Stories from Pulphouse Magazine, edited by Dean; Alien Influences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch; and a short story collection by Dean called Alien Vibrations—as well as nine other awesome books.
As always with StoryBundle, you name your own price and can choose to stick with the four included books or go all in for the full 12-book bundle. Plus, you can donate to the incredible AbleGamers charity while you’re at it.
You have a little bit longer to get in on this great deal, but only an extra week, so don’t dally.
Click here for more information.
If there is alien life out there, I sure hope it proves to be smarter than we humans seem determined to be these days.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
I can’t imagine life without cats. I’ve lived with cats most of my life and have had at least one feline companion for the past 30 years.
I have always loved animals, but cats are special creatures. I’ve always felt particularly connected to them. I sometimes wonder if I was a cat in a past life.
There’s really not much better than having a purring cat curled up in your lap.
But it’s a cruel reality that cats’ lifespans are so much shorter than ours.
If you read Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s blog, you’ve seen her write about bad cat years. Those are the years you lose multiple cats because of age or ill health or both.
It’s a phenomenon I wasn’t familiar with until recently.
I’m having a bad cat year. A bad pet year, actually.
My 17-year-old Sydney died in July. He had kidney disease, which we knew. But his brother and litter mate, Truman, had been living with kidney disease for three years at that point, so I thought Sydney, who was diagnosed about 8 months prior, would have more time.
I was wrong. He seemed fine, and then suddenly he wasn’t. In a particularly cruel twist of fate (or as Kris says, planning on his part to make it easier for me), his rapid decline happened the first time I traveled across the country since the pandemic hit. I couldn’t get home quickly enough to be there. And I couldn’t let him suffer while waiting. It was a brutal decision.
In October, our 12-year-old miniature poodle blew out her right back knee. Surgery wasn’t an option due to her age and other medical issues. We were able to keep her relatively pain free and mobile until her other back knee went right before Thanksgiving. That was also a difficult decision, because her spirit was willing but her body had failed her. So, there I was collecting ashes for the second pet in four months.
Soon, I will need to make a decision about Truman, too. He’s rebounded so many times the past four years. When he broke his back leg in March 2018, and then was diagnosed with kidney disease shortly thereafter, I had to face his mortality. But his decline has been so slow, it kind of lulled me into the fantasy that he might live, well, not forever, but I couldn’t really put an end date on it.
Yet, I know I’m now measuring his time left in weeks. When the end comes, it will be whole different kind of brutal.
And I still might not be done with the bad cat year. Our youngest cat, Max, is 16 1/2 with severe arthritis and a heart murmur.
But you all know I can’t just focus on the negative. I have to find the silver linings.
For Sydney, that was recognizing that he didn’t want to be frail. Syd was the alpha of our pack, despite being the smallest. He’s the one who took care of everyone else. He wouldn’t have tolerated the interventions necessary to keep his kidney disease at bay.
For Truman, who is so different in some ways from Syd, that’s been getting pampered. He loves riding in the car (Syd hated it), and he loves seeing his “people” at the vet’s office twice a week for his “spa treatments” (although he’s quite vocal about his annoyance at said “treatments”). His eyes perk up in recognition as soon as we approach the Starbucks drive-through for his weekly cattuccino. And he now gets fed on demand with a variety of options offered so he can choose his favorite from the chef’s finest selections. Only human food will do now. The current favorites are rotisserie chicken and smoked salmon.
As for Max, he has always wanted to be an only cat, so soon, and for the rest of his life however long that may be, he will get his wish.
I think the least we can do to make up for cats’ ridiculously short lifespans is to pamper them.
As for me, it will take some time for my heart to heal. But in the meantime, it helps to remember my boys in their youth. And to be grateful for the time I got to spend with them.
And until I can bear the thought of letting another cat into my heart, I am comforted by the fact that I have no shortage of cat stories to read.
Cat fiction has a way of soothing the soul, doesn’t it?
Our latest collection of cat fiction comes by way of the Cattitude StoryBundle, curated by Dean Wesley Smith (who is, of course, also a companion to several cats).
This StoryBundle features five WMG books—a three-book bundle called The Fates Trilogy by Kristine Grayson, the new Pakhet Jones novella Big Eyes by Dean, and The Year of the Cat: A Cat of Fantastic Whims, edited by Kris and Dean.
Click here to check it out.
Even in the worst of times, life truly is better with cats.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.
When it comes to sports, what I love most is a good story. That’s no surprise, I suppose, given what I do for a living.
And the best sporting event for good stories is, of course, the Olympics. Even though coverage of this year’s Olympics is different (for reasons I’m not going into here), you can still find stories about the athletes.
There’s Shaun White’s last Olympics. Nathan Chen’s hope for redemption. Maame Biney’s race for gold.
And then there’s an athlete whose story I’m more personally invested in: my cousin Sean Doherty, a biathlete in his third Olympics.
The biathlon is a fascinating event. It’s highly competitive. It requires not only incredible endurance but also incredible accuracy. No American biathlete has ever won an Olympic medal—yet—but not because they aren’t awesome athletes.
So, I think my cousin and his teammates deserve a bit more attention. If you want to read more about Sean and the team, click here and here.
And if the Olympics isn’t your style, but you still want to read some good sports stories, naturally, we have you covered. Check out Fiction River: Risk Takers, edited by Dean Wesley Smith (a former professional athlete).
Here’s the synopsis:
Money, business, sports, love: All involve risk—and skill. The skilled authors in this volume masterfully exhibit both. Buckle in while a locomotive engineer uses magic in a race to avoid extinction, a game developer must outmaneuver an alien for Earth’s fate, and an exterminator risks everything to go after some really big rats.
Crossing genre lines through science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical, and mainstream, these adrenaline-pumping stories about taking risks offer nothing but reward.
Includes:
“Play the Man” by Dan C. Duval
“The F Factor” by Chrissy Wissler
“No Free Lunch” by Anthea Sharp
“Winning the Ocean Pearl” by T. D. Edge
“China Moll” by Cindie Geddes
“A Tale of Good Whiskey, Bad Coffee, and One Devious Woman” by Annie Reed
“Bucking the Tiger” by John Helfers & Kerrie Hughes
“The Messiah Business” by Robert T. Jeschonek
“Muggins Rules” by Russ Crossley
“Cost and Conscience” by Christy Fifield
“Side Baiting” by Phaedra Weldon
“Gambler’s Fallacy” by Brigid Collins
“The Man Who Decided” by Dean Wesley Smith
“Rats” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
“Driving the Line” by Dan C. Duval
“Side Bet” by Lee Allred
One of my favorite stories in Risk Takers is “The F Factor,” which marked Chrissy Wissler’s first (but certainly not last) appearance in Fiction River. Chrissy is also a former professional athlete, and this window into the sacrifice required to play at that level makes for one hell of a powerful story.
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.