Designing a Conlang Backwards
I invented an alien accent by ear, then had to reverse-engineer the grammar that would naturally produce it. When Vylaraian pickpocket Lari said “I’s tryin’ t’ be you friend,” I wasn’t thinking about linguistics—just making her sound right. But months later, writing a reader magnet, I needed actual
What Actually Makes YA Literature “Young Adult”
A reader challenged me after I posted about “Doors to the Stars,” my YA space opera: aren’t you just writing adult fiction with a teenage protagonist? It’s a sophisticated question that cuts to the heart of YA’s current crisis. The genre has been captured by adult readers, and publishers responded b
Your Choices Matter: A Space Opera for Deltarune Fans
What does it mean when a game tells you your choices don’t matter—and then proves they do? Toby Fox’s Deltarune asks this question brilliantly, exploring themes of agency, control, and something alien merged with you that threatens your autonomy. I didn’t discover it until after writing Doors to the
Doors to the Stars Sample Chapter
Sixteen-year-old Wulan has weeks to live. Radiation poisoning from her last salvage run is killing her, and the only thing that might save her is selling the ancient Forger disk she found in the wreck—alien biotech that hums with her dead mother’s lullaby. When a double-cross gets her best friend ki
Modern YA Is Failing Teenagers—I’m Stealing it Back
I queried *Doors to the Stars* to over two dozen agents. Zero full manuscript requests. My 11-year-old daughter stayed up all night devouring it. My 19-year-old son texted me at 2 AM about plot twists. But publishing professionals? Not interested. The book features a 16-year-old scavenger who discov
Wanted: Advance Readers for Doors to the Stars
The artifact is changing her. Everyone who wants it wants to own her. Sixteen-year-old Wulan was dying on a scavenged world until she found an ancient Forger relic humming with alien intelligence. Now the regime hunts her, revolutionaries need her as a weapon, and a smuggler crew just saved her life
Doors to the Stars: She Who Dares, Wins
Wulan scavenges radiation-poisoned ruins on Miller’s World, trying to keep a handful of kids alive in a galaxy fractured by a war three centuries past. Then she finds something the Ascendancy has been hunting for decades: a Forger disk, an ancient alien key that can reactivate the gates connecting t
