Friday Five – Andrew Careaga

The year in numbers

Another end-of-year wrap-up that nobody asked for.

I’m not going to bore you with some tale of woe about all the personal life challenges 2025 brought to me and my loved ones. We all face those, year in and year out, and some years are tougher than others, and in the end, it’s all relative. Suffice it to say that I’m a fortunate person and I try to be grateful for all of life’s blessings.

So instead, I will bore you with a listicle about my year in writing.

Friday Five: Q&A with ‘Mailed It!’ authors Ashley Budd and Dayana Kibilds

Two marketing pros share their wisdom for writers.

Today’s Friday Five deviates from our usual fare — Q&As with literary types — to introduce two outstanding marketers and recent co-authors who can help all of us who struggle to promote our writing. Their tool is nothing mysterious; it’s that workhorse of modern communication, email.

Ashley Budd and Dayana “Day” Kibilds are the authors of the new book Mailed It!: A Guide to Crafting Emails That Build Relationships and Get Results.

Friday Five: on great books, flash fiction, writing advice, late bloomers, and Alice Munro

Some recent reads worth sharing:

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.

Friday Five: Q&A with ‘Freezing Reign’ author L.A. Goff

‘Your first book will be less than perfect. Write it anyway.’

L.A. Goff photo — L.A. Goff, author of ‘Freezing Reign’

Continuing this blog’s highlight of women writers during Women’s History Month, today’s Friday Five Q&A is with L.A. Goff, author of the dystopian thriller Freezing Reign and another writer from my area. Freezing Reign is Goff’s debut novel and the first in a series. A self-described “reformed journalist who discovered it’s more fun to create new worlds than report on this one,” Goff has extensive experience in non-fiction as well.