Currently I am pushing to finish an almost-done novel and then finish some less done ones, both YA and adult. The YAs are all realistic fiction revolving around high schoolers, private school politics, socioeconomics, toxic masculinity, and race. The adult is a spec fic about music and ghosts and how gifted children grow up to be adult underachievers, which is totally not autobiographical at all. I’m also trying to work on two screenplays, one of which is based on an opera. For fun, I like to write treatments for books I want to turn into TV miniseries, and then I show them to nobody because I don’t work in the industry (want to introduce me?).
I’m doing freelance editorial work, from audiobook quality control to sensitivity reads to general manuscript reader reports.
And I’m enrolled in the Language, Reading and Culture PhD at the University of Arizona, in the College of Education’s Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies department. My focus is in middle grade and young adult fiction. I work mainly with critical race theory and ethnic studies, with a dash of semi-radical Marxism and intersectional feminism. I’m part of a new interdisciplinary minor program in social, cultural, and critical theory. My dissertation will look at the blurred lines between critics, academics, fans, readers, authors, and publishers (it’s rare these days that anybody is only one of those things) and how that influences which books will be published and which books will be canceled or panned before publication.
What random other things do I do? I’m almost done with my 500-hour comprehensive Pilates certification. I’m teaching swim lessons to preschoolers and kindergarteners. I’m taking a semester off from choir. I’m trying to log into Rosetta Stone more often. I’m writing another book for hire. I’m trying to pay off a lot of bills from a summer with a lot less work than I expected. Frankly, I distrust people with a single passion. I like having backups, I like being busy, and I’m never doing quite all the things I want to.