Release Date June 2012

The release date is here! June 2012. Hip hip hooray!

I’m so excited for The Shapeshifter’s Secret to come out. It has been a dream of mine for a long time to get published, and working with Cedar Fort has been such a positive experience.

I remember scribbling down incomplete short stories in Jr. High and wanting so bad to one day become an author. I’ll never forget when I was 13 years old, and I told my dad I wanted to write books. Looking at me confidently, he said, “Then do it.” He passed away shortly after that, but I’ll never forget how encouraging he was. He really taught me to just go for whatever ambitions I had in life.

My mom was incredibly supportive too. She was consistently feeding my creativity with fantasy novels, trips to book stores, and summers filled Harry Potter (seriously we watched The Sorcerer’s Stone everyday for one summer straight).

It has been a lot of hard work to get to this point, which included harsh criticism and rejection. Both of which can make anyone question their aspirations. However, I kept going because of motivation, passion, support, and prayer.

I know that rejection is part of the process. And even though it can be brutal, it helps you grow, which is hard to see when you get a letter that begins “Dear Author, thank you so much for submitting your story…unfortunately we’ve decided…best of luck though!”

Having gone through that and finally getting to this point has been really exciting. I really hope to encourage other writers to jump in with both feet when it comes to getting your work out there, even when you’re right in the thick of it.

“Why do writers writer? Because it isn’t there.” –Thomas Berger.