August Falling: The Inception
While I was doing the Hachette Manuscript Development Program, then-Hachette publisher Bernadette Foley asked me to think about where my book fit in the market. As research to that question, I asked some of the other participants if they’d read similar books to my own. The wonderful Kim Lock made a number of suggestions, including one popular novel. I bought a swath of books with the intent of seeing how they related to Just Another Week in Suburbia. That was the summer I house-sat my friend’s house to dog-sit their dog, Jet, so I could work on the revision of Just Another Week in Suburbia. While I was off from…
Prudence: Chapter 5a
Constance leans against the edge of her desk, arms folded across her chest. She has been hostess a long time and remembers many eventful nights. Indeed, she remembers every night in vivid detail, once recalling them with condescension and judgement, then with amusement, and now with a wry disassociation. There have been attacks against Icons, fights on the dance floor, journalists sneaking in attempting to find the famed basement, numerous acts of copulation in dark corners, and even an attempted robbery. But tonight has been different because it’s involved an uprising. The only time she has experienced anything similar was the night she was offered the position of hostess. She…