author – Andrew Careaga

Repost: a writer’s declaration of independence

I wrote this declaration and posted it on the Fourth of July. I thought it might be worth sharing again as we in the USA approach our country’s 250th anniversary.

Friday Five: ‘All Our Tomorrows’ author Amy DeBellis

‘Don’t be afraid to write stuff that’s mediocre. If you don’t write the mediocre, you can’t build up to the good and the great.’

For Amy DeBellis, “writing is a way to express negative emotions: fear, grief, rage,” she says. “I also find that makes for more interesting stories.”

To call Amy’s stories interesting is like calling Stephen King’s novel Christine a book about an old clunker. Her short stories may glimmer on the surface, but beneath that veneer, the gruesome and bizarre are exposed, but not in an overt, obvious horror-genre way. She also sets many of her writings in a dystopian near future–one not so far off from our current world and circumstances, just enough to help us imagine what those current circumstances can lead to.

Amy’s astounding debut novel, All Our Tomorrows (CLASH Books, 2025), explores the lives of three Gen Z women navigating late-stage capitalism in a near-future New York City.

On repurposing content from novels and other longer works

How to ‘let bits of your work see the light of day’

Note: This post has been revised to incorporate information about serialization that I’d overlooked previously.

This week, as I hunker indoors amidst a deep freeze here in Middle America, I’ve also been wading into the thick slog of my novel in progress (NIP). It’s been slow going at times, as I press on through the morass, a bit like an explorer who has lost his compass and looks backward to see if it’s too late to turn back. It feels daunting and lonely, and in more than once I’ve wondered if the slog is worth it.

Friday Five: Q&A with cozy fiction writer Sally Bayless

Today’s Friday Five is with Sally Bayless, a novelist who writes in the “cozy” mystery genre. Sally and I met many years ago when I was a reporter for a now-defunct daily newspaper and Sally was a summer intern. Since that time, she graduated from journalism school, worked as a newspaper copy editor (remember those?), and ended up in corporate communications, where “I edited everything from an article on gastrointestinal scopes to a report on the use of depleted uranium in armor-piercing weapons, all of it (honestly) fascinating.” These days, she’s working on book seven of her Dogwood Springs Cozy Mystery Series. All of the book titles are alliterative and set in the mythical Ozarks town of Dogwood Springs.