What is your favorite thing about IN A HANDFUL OF DUST?

The best part of writing DUST was revisiting this world ten years later. Lynn is an adult now, Lucy has become a teen. I got the chance to play with who they had become, how they had grown and changed, and what their relationship is like a decade after their lives in NOT A DROP TO DRINK.

What was your inspiration for writing this book?

I wanted to see more of the world I built in DRINK, venturing beyond the small area of the pond and Lynn's home. Fast forwarding ten years came from wanting to see what Lucy had become.

How long did you work on the book? 

I wrote it fairly quickly, in about six months.

How long or hard was your road to publication? How many books did you write before this one, and how many never got published? 

I had been writing for ten years before I landed representation with NOT A DROP TO DRINK. Previous to DRINK I had trunked three adult novels and one YA title.

What's your writing ritual like? Do you listen to music? Work at home or at a coffee shop or the library, etc? 

I like silence, although sometimes I'll put on white noise if there's too much background going on. I write in bed, at night - it's my only free time!

What advice would you most like to pass along to other writers? 

Be able to take, and process, criticism. If you can't do that you will never improve.

What are you working on now? 

I am editing my 2015 release, which will be coming from Katherine Tegen Books. It is a Gothic historical set in an insane asylum, tentatively titled A MADNESS SO DISCREET.