Meet Sunshield's sequel: FLOODPATH.

From the outset, I envisioned The Outlaw Road as a two-part story---book one, where I set up and then broke apart my protagonists, and book two, where they have to figure out how to rebuild themselves. Despite Sunshield releasing in the early chaos of COVID-19, its sequel is in its final stages of editing and is on track to release in March of next year. This is your first look!

As a reminder, here is the cover of Sunshield:

We have Lark's buckler, shining with sunlight, set over a panorama of the desert below. So how did the design team take this cover to the next level?

Check it out! The fracturing shield! The breaking glass! The spattered water! The atriums of Tolukum Palace rising from the trees! I love what the design team did here to tie into the symbolism of broken identities and growing crises.

Want a peek into those crises? Here's the back cover summary:

The epic fantasy adventure begun in Sunshield races to its thrilling conclusion in this imaginative finale in which the fate of four extraordinary young people—and their nations—will be decided.

When their hopes for ending Moquoia’s brutal system of bondage are crushed, unlikely allies Lark and Veran are forced to flee into the harsh desert. With no weapons or horses, they must make their way to safety across the 50-mile expanse of waterless plains known as the water scrape. It is an odyssey filled with unexpected dangers that challenge even a skilled outlaw like Lark—though the farther they travel, the more she wonders if she even fits the fearsome title of the Sunshield Bandit anymore.

Injured in the coup to overthrow the Moquoian monarchy, Tamsin, accompanied by Iano, retreat to a safe house, where they await the return of Lark and Veran. Determined to uncover the traitor in the court, they devise a plan to confront the new palace ashoki, Kimela.

Imperiled by wilderness and their own tenuous alliances, Lark, Tamsin, and Veran each face massive risks to uncover the truth. But even if they find it, will their combined forces be strong enough to stop the evil infecting their beautiful land . . . and transform it into a fairer society for all? 

Floodpath comes out March 23, 2021. You can pre-order it here or through your favorite book retailer. In the meantime, pick up Sunshield from your local bookseller or library (order it through Turning Page Bookshop to support an independent Black-owned bookstore in my state!). And if you're looking for signed copies---and maybe a free bookmark, if they're still in stock---try one of these indie sellers:

Rose, Tamsin, and Veran speedpaints, plus a lot of mermaid paintings I can't show you yet.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from so many of you as you progress through the book. I’m so grateful to everyone who is enjoying it and/or cursing me from afar as they finish it! No matter what you think of it, please remember to post a short review on Amazon or Goodreads--that means a lot!

Since release day, I’ve had the great fortune to have been a guest on several podcasts and blogs to chat about Sunshield, writing, and sundry other topics. So in lieu of a brand-new blog post (Covid has really taken a bite out of my work schedule, and as you may have noticed, monthly blogs have been one of the casualties), here are links to some of the places I’ve appeared. Make sure to check out their other guests and topics, too! Also listed are all the independent bookstores where you can purchase a signed copy of Sunshield​!

Check them all out below the jump!

Fictitious Podcast
A great conversation with host Adron about writing Sunshield and the SFF genre.

Magic and Melting Glaciers: Climate Change in SFF - Guest Blog Post for Functional Nerds
Thoughts that have sprung from writing eco-fantasy in the face of climate change.

In Conversation with Sarah Beth Durst
A release-week video chat with SFF author Sarah Beth Durst (Race the Sands) for Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore.

This Book Was Written by a Park Ranger: Interview with Outside Magazine
I was interviewed by Outside!

Functional Nerds Podcast
A fun chat with hosts Tracy and Patrick that wound up as a national park love-fest.

Six Stunning Fantasies for Nature Lovers - Guest Blog Post for TOR.com
Book recs for when you need your nature fix.

​Sunshield’s Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review
An epic review by international publishing news magazine Publisher’s Weekly​.

Fiction Addiction
Greenville, SC
M.Judson Booksellers
Greenville, SC
City Lights Bookstore
Sylva, NC
Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore
San Diego, CA
The Raven Bookstore
Lawrence, KS
The King's English Bookshop
Salt Lake City, UT

Thanks once again for making the socially-distant launch of Sunshield so special! A big shout-out goes to my publicist, Holly Rice, who has organized everything under the sun and more for this release, and to Jill Hendrix of Fiction Addiction for hosting the launch party!

Between the launch and two other manuscript deadlines, I've only had the chance to finish two pieces over the past few months, but I'm pretty pleased with them. First is Eugenides, done as a consolation for not being able to participate in all seven days of Queen's Thief Appreciation Week on Tumblr, and the second is a study of the High Seas Husbands from Hornblower​.

Well, life has changed a lot since my previous blog post just a few weeks ago. I hope all of you are safe and well. It's been challenging to write and create in this new physical and mental reality, with my kids out of school and all kinds of anxiety. But I've been fortunate to have a lot of good news on the publishing end of things, starting with this exciting new sneak peek of Sunshield! Now you can read the first three chapters, meeting each of the three protagonists I've introduced to you over the past few months! Plus, Creatures of Light readers get a glimpse of an old familiar character. Follow the link below! 

But wait! That's not all! If you have pre-ordered Sunshield or pre-order it any time before its release, follow this link to enter proof of purchase and receive an exclusive themed cell phone wallpaper! 
More, you say? Guess what! Following the first two installments in the trilogy, Creatures of Light is an April Kindle Monthly Deal! From now until the end of the month, you can get the e-book for only $0.99 from your favorite e-book retailer! I highly recommend Bookshop.org, as your purchase goes to your local independent bookseller! Get it now!

Lark, Veran, The Witcher, a brain candy Queen's Thief piece, and some thank-you pieces to people who are making isolation a little brighter. 

A desperate outlaw. A sheltered diplomat. An imprisoned heretic. If you’ve been following my blog posts over the past few months, you know we have one more Sunshield protagonist to meet. I’ve introduced you to Lark, the dreaded Sunshield Bandit, and Veran Greenbrier, the earnest court translator. The final cog in this trio is Tamsin Moropai—poet, musician, and the epicenter of an ambitious political coup.

​I was worried about Tamsin before I started writing her, and it was for the same reason other characters in the book are worried about her—for most of the plot, she’s trapped within four walls. Rather than being concerned for her physical wellbeing, though, I was worried that placed next to the action- and dialogue-packed POVs of Lark and Veran, her story wouldn’t hold up. It’s difficult to write a captive character and still give them agency and intrigue—I learned this lesson while writing Ashes to Fire. For a while, I put off writing her chapters simply because I was worried she’d be… boring.

Man, was I wrong.
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Tamsin is a perfect example of how characters can surprise their authors with their personalities. Originally, I’d thought Lark would be the snarky one and Tamsin more introspective. But it was Tamsin who emerged with a streak of stubborn, spite-based humor, while Lark faced her own dire consequences with a more serious outlook. Right from the gate, Tamsin fought for every ounce of relevancy and agency in her tiny prison. She grabbed her predicament with both hands and a delightfully wry interior voice, forcing her bad situation to bend to her will. 

Tamsin also provided me with much of the important symbolism throughout the book. Being a poet, she wrings meaning from the details of her limited surroundings—the subtle shift of colors in the sky, a rainstorm, the bats that swarm outside her tiny window each night. If Lark and Veran provide the action and exposition of the story, Tamsin weaves those threads together into something bigger and weightier than the other two protagonists realize.

Her chapters revolve around the mysteries of her captivity: who planned the brutal attack on her coach? Who is levering her as blackmail? And who, inside the glittering, powerful Moquoian court, is actually a traitor in disguise? 

So there are our three protagonists of Sunshield. Lark, the titular outlaw, world-weary and sharp-edged. Veran, son of the Silverwood's most famous Woodwalker, with everything to prove. And Tamsin, captive political revolutionary, who unknowingly pulls her two fellow protagonists together. 

I hope you've enjoyed meeting these three characters. Stay tuned, as always, for lots more goodies as we get closer to Sunshield's release. Like what you've seen so far? Click the banner below to pre-order the book!

There's just under one week left to enter the DTIYS challenge to win a copy of Woodwalker! To enter and see more details, hop over to Instagram!

A lot of book fan art, including some childhood favorites that I recently read to my kids and Samantha Shannon's The Priory of the Orange Tree, plus a ToonMe portrait challenge.

Last month, I introduced you all to Sunshield and one of it’s protagonists, Lark. But she’s not the only main character. The book is written in rotating perspective among three characters, and while it’s Lark who gives the book it’s name and muscle, there’s another narrator who might strike a chord with readers of the Creatures of Light trilogy. His name is Veran Greenbrier, and he’s the son of Mae, protagonist of my first book, Woodwalker.

In this month’s post, I’ll share a little bit about Veran’s character, his struggles, and his earliest sketches in my notebooks. For the sake of readers who haven’t yet read Woodwalker, I’m going to keep this post free of spoilers for the Creatures of Light trilogy. Readers already familiar with Mae will know Veran’s lineage and the kind of upbringing he had. Those not familiar… let’s go not so much with mama bear, but mama wolf, who cuddles her pups before leading them out to kill an elk and howl about how great her territory is.
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See it all after the jump!

Though Sunshield was conceived back when I was still writing Ashes to Fire, Veran didn’t appear in my sketchbook until I was done with Creatures of Light two years later, mostly because that book had to undergo a complete rewrite and fundamentally changed his family dynamics. All his chapters in the early Sunshield manuscript were blank spaces, waiting to be filled in once I figured out what his mom was going to do in Creatures of Light. Almost the same day that I sent Creatures to my editor, two versions of Veran bloomed in full color, right next to a sketch of his mother and above a sketch of him placed alongside Lark for the first time.

When Sunshield was first announced, the pitch described a “desperate outlaw, a sheltered diplomat, and an imprisoned heretic on a quest to expose a system of corruption.” In that equation, Veran is the filling in the outlaw-heretic sandwich. When Sunshield begins, Veran is a thousand miles away from his home in the Silverwood Mountains, serving as a translator in the opulent palace of Moquoia. If this seems at odds with his upbringing as the son of woodsy, salt-of-the-earth Mae, don’t worry: it is, and it’s his most constant—but not only—source of anxiety.

​Veran is the fourth of five siblings, all of whom already have a list of accomplishments to their names, including a brother who has almost earned his rank as Woodwalker, like their mother. Throughout Sunshield, Veran is dogged by his determination to make his mark amid his storied family. As he tells another character:

As events in Sunshield unfold, this fear drives him to take more and more risks, eventually leading him out of the palace and into the merciless Ferinno Desert, right to the point of the Sunshield Bandit’s sword.

As for what happens next... we'll have to wait for Sunshield's release on May 26—pre-order it to get it that day! And keep an eye out for an exclusive excerpt coming in March, and some advance copy giveaways—follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to get all the latest goodies! If you’d like to get to know Veran’s mother, Mae, check out Woodwalker (available through any major bookseller, but go here to buy it from my local indie; you can request a signed copy). Ashes to Fire and Creatures of Light will both be on sale over the next two months, so now is a great time to dive into this series. Or, as always, request them all from your local library!

A slew of commissions as I work to get through my queue before Sunshield promo amps up, though I did manage to do some sketches from some of my favorite childhood books that I'm now reading with my kids.

Hey writers! Got a tricky scene that isn’t working out, and you can’t figure out why? Confounded by your characters’ inexplicable desire to do the opposite of what you want them to do? At a complete blank at what your protagonists are destined to do next? You might have a pivot point!

I’m using my last post of 2019 (written in 2019 but obdurately posted in 2020) to talk about this little writing nugget, partially because I haven’t done a post for writers since the summer, and also because I’m hoping this slide into 2020 will be a pivot point for me. 2019 was rough, for a variety of reasons from sheer business with my summer job to a series of mental/emotional cataclysms, but 2020 already feels more stable. My next book, Sunshield, releases in May, and I have several long-awaited goals coming to fruition in this next year. So it seemed topical to discuss these little oddities I think of as plot “pivot points.” Below I’ll talk about what these tricky scenes are, why they can send a manuscript spiraling out of control, and a few ways I approach them.

See it all after the jump!

I should point out that these scenes aren’t necessarily pivot points for your finished plot—a reader, when coming to your problem scene, might not see any particular crossroads there. It might not be a major, high-stakes moment where the consequences of a decision are clearly defined. These are in-progress pivot points, your own problematic spawn, that affect the writing of the novel. They’re places where, depending on which way you pivot, you could end up with a completely different book.

Which for me, a Plotter*, can be terrifying!

So let’s break them down, shall we?

*For non-writers, “plotters” are people who like to plan out their stories beforehand, while “pantsers” prefer to fly by the seat of their pants and do minimal plotting. Most people are hybrids. I’m probably 80% plotter and 20% pantser. 

In Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody (a book I’ve mentioned before), the author identifies two catalysts in most novels—one at the beginning that boots the protagonist out the proverbial door into the unknown, and one near the end that fuels the climactic finale. At first I thought my concept of pivot points might be what Brody calls the catalysts, but I’ve now come to think of them more as the step that follows—the Debate. The catalyst is usually outside the protagonist’s control—the Hogwarts letter arrives, the Ring of Power comes to Frodo, Lucy finds the wardrobe. It’s the waffling that comes after that places the plot in the hands of the protagonist, and depending on what the character decides, it’s going to snowball into your ultimate finished story. Again, a reader might not identify these scenes as being hinges for the plot—they’re more likely to hone in on a catalyst as a major turning point in a novel. But as writers, the debates can be trickier to conceptualize and write, because it’s in these moments that our characters have no place to hide. Their convictions, biases, and backstory are in full view.

While Brody lists two catalysts and two debate periods, I’ve found I tend to have five to six pivot points throughout the novel, usually when the character is confronted with new information they have to act on or digest (which can be considered mini-catalysts). I’ve also found they tend to be some of my hardest scenes to write. I know I’ve reached a pivot point when I freeze up, unsure of what a character needs to do. Dialogue doesn’t lay right. Actions seem contrived or aimless. An oversight in backstory or motivation becomes glaringly obvious. These are also the scenes I rewrite the most—trying, over and over, to figure out what’s going wrong and why things seem so off. 

A good example of when I first started identifying my pivot points is from my second book, Ashes to Fire. There’s a lot of action up front, with a wedding, a short journey, and an attack. But perhaps surprisingly, the scene I had the hardest time with—one that I rewrote dozens of times and was still editing up through copyedits—was the brief, quiet scene between Mona and Mae on the ship as they head toward Cyprien. At first, I couldn’t figure out why the scene was giving me so much grief—they’re just chatting on the boat! Mae has a splinter! Mona is reading a book! What’s the big deal? 

What I came to realize was that this scene lays the groundwork for every decision Mona makes afterward—her political actions, her attitudes toward romance, her list of allies… this scene sets them all up. By getting the conversation wrong, it was skewing all the stuff that needed to come afterward. When I focused too much on politics and not on her unease toward romance, it deflated all the tension building between her and Rou. When I focused too much on nitpicking over her romantic past, it watered down the dire politics she was facing (and gave away too many of her secrets up front). And by not touching on her perceptions of fellow queen Gemma, the subsequent strange, delicate dance of their alliance had no depth.

That scene went through complete and partial rewrites at every round of editing, and I recall tweaking some of the dialogue on the eve that the final manuscript was due to my editor. Now, when I reach scenes that give me similar trouble, I have more insight into what the issue is—it’s a scene that future story arcs are resting on. Get it wrong, and those arcs shoot off in bizarre directions… or simply fall apart.
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So what do we, panicked and frustrated writers, do when facing a perplexing pivot point?

Ah, the writer’s best friend—willful ignorance! Often, though, this is the best strategy when confronted with a trouble scene. Pivot points rest on a character’s debate over their convictions, and sometimes, especially early in a draft, we simply don’t know what that character’s convictions are yet. By the third installment in my trilogy, Creatures of Light, I had a pretty good grasp on all my protagonists, but when starting Sunshield, with a brand-new set of characters, I was at square one again. I went through several of those frustrating scenes with Lark, Veran, and Tamsin because I didn’t know them well enough yet. Ultimately, I simply put a place holder in the text – [insert argument here]— and moved on. Once I’d sketched out the rest of the plot, I knew my characters better and had a stronger grasp on how they would react in conflicts.

Ignoring a character’s plight can only last so long, however—for whatever reason, my editor isn’t wild about me leaving conjectural action in brackets and letting the reader fill in the rest (I recall sending him a synopsis outline for Sunshield with one whole bullet point simply being “shit hits the fan”). When I’m returning to a scene I’ve previously skipped over, I often find my character’s theme is the best tool I have for figuring out their beliefs.
​
Brody’s Save the Cat has a great section on your character’s theme—what it is, why it’s important, and how to identify it. In essence, this is your character’s journey—it’s the Big Truth they need to figure out about themselves throughout the trials of the novel. And fortunately for us as authors, once we understand our characters’ themes, they can help inform all their actions, anger, joy, defeats, and triumphs. In Sunshield, when I hit a snag with Veran—Mae’s son—I waffled over his actions before remembering that his theme rests on his sense of identity, and his craving to make his mark. Once I’d established that, it clarified what he’d choose to do in the moment (turns out, rush headlong into just about anything, like mother like son).

Being a hardcore Plotter, this strategy gives me major anxiety, but it does work and might be more appealing to Pantsers. Sometimes we just have to write a scene knowing that it’s garbage, and then force ourselves to keep going. Occasionally, that garbage draft will produce a gem that works out, or—gasp—gives us a better alternative than the one we had planned. This happened in Sunshield with my bandit protagonist, Lark. I arrived at a pivot point where I hadn’t fully defined her beliefs or backstory, and I went against my inclinations to skip the scene and instead hashed out a conversation between her and Veran. It ultimately opened up an aspect of her character that’s now a critical part of her backstory. Sometimes, pushing forward allows dialogue and action to flow to a natural conclusion we haven’t considered yet.

So, there's my high-quality insight for this 2019-2020 transition. If you're having problem with a scene in your manuscript, it may be because past and future action are relying on that scene to shine. Patience, perseverance, and open-mindedness are key to success. I'm sure that has some parallel to pivot points in real life, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is.

Happy 2020 everybody--go forth and pivot!

A ten-year redraw of my 2009 piece of Legolas at the gates of Mordor, two Eugenides speedpaints because it had been a minute, and a watercolor commission of Denali for a Christmas gift.

Writers are busy, distracted beasts.

There’s never been a time in my writing career that I’ve had less than three manuscripts going at once. That’s not to say I’m writing them all at the same time—they’re always at different stages, from concept to drafting to editing to publication (for a peek at some of my strategies at each of these different stages, check out My Strategic Author Shoebox). This was true in the very early stages of Woodwalker, back in 2015 when it was just a baby manuscript looking for an agent. That year, I was a park ranger in Yellowstone querying my first book, drafting my second, and plotting my third, when a brand new character popped into my life. Over the past four years, that character has sprouted a whole world and duology around her, with book one, Sunshield, debuting on May 26, 2020.

The Outlaw Road duology has three narrators, but at the heart of the story is a single character, and it’s her alias that gives book one its title. Head below the jump to read about her origins and the story that grew around her, along with her visual development!

Meet the Sunshield Bandit.

​To most people in the Ferinno Desert and beyond, the Sunshield Bandit is a legendary outlaw, armed with a sword and mirrored buckler that she uses to turn the harsh sunlight into a weapon while robbing unlucky stagecoaches. But to the ragtag group of runaways and orphans in remote Three Lines Canyon, the Sunshield Bandit is simply Lark, their world-weary—and increasingly desperate—guardian. 

Lark first appeared in my pocket sketchbook during that summer of 2015, while I was running around the geyser steam of the Old Faithful district. I was querying Woodwalker at the time and writing Ashes to Fire, and diving deeper into that world meant I was starting to think beyond the Silverwood Mountains and Lumen Lake. There were whole other countries I had written but hadn’t yet explored—the hills of Winder, the coasts of Paroa, even the far-flung island of Samna. Lark, then unnamed, first appeared in my notes as a pirate (I think I’d just finished reading Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo). 

​I’ve always had a thing for seafaring stories, but it’s pretty intimidating to write one—ships are hard and sea epic fans are notoriously detail-oriented. I’m working through this fear with another manuscript, but at that time, I didn’t feel ready to write a pirate story. So I turned this new character over in my head, wondering how I might approach her story. It didn’t take long—only a day or two, as I recall—for Yellowstone’s sagebrush flats to shake some sense into me. I might not have experience sailing a tall ship, but I’ve been stomping around the desert southwest and Colorado Plateau for a significant portion of my adult life… this new character wasn’t a pirate—she was an outlaw. And she wasn’t on the seas off of Samna, she was in the slot canyons and mesas of a country I’d already established—Alcoro. 

My love for westerns almost matches my love for sea epics, and I was excited about the idea of approaching a classic desert bandit with the gender balance and ren-faire tech of Creatures of Light. Lark started taking shape right away, from her fleet of tattoos to the eyeblack smears on her face to her rangy coyote-mutt. Instead of a revolver, I gave her a crossbow, but the real weight to her character came when I handed her the small, mirrored shield that she’d use to blind her targets, thus leading to the name plastered on bounty posters across the Ferinno: The Sunshield Bandit: Wanted Dead or Alive.

All this happened just days before one of my query letters made it through the slush pile of my now-agent, Valerie Noble of Donaghy Literary. Once she and I connected and joined forces, Lark had to be put on hold while Woodwalker suddenly became a publishing reality. It wasn't until the next summer in my ranger hat, this time in Great Smoky Mountains, that I was able to pick Lark's story back up. During that time I got to know more of her personality, her troubles, her joys, and her tenacity.

Now Sunshield is in its final months of pre-publication, and I'm putting the finishing touches on its sequel, seeing Lark's story through to its conclusion. I've drawn a lot of strength from this character since those early days--she's put up with everything I've thrown at her, powering through them even when I wasn't sure how she'd do it. She's shown me her toughness and her softness, her grit and her kindness. And she's led her co-protagonists on the adventure of a lifetime.

Sunshield is set twenty years after the Creatures of Light trilogy, and features a few children of characters readers of CoL will recognize (though the series itself is standalone--you don't have to have read Creatures of Light to enjoy The Outlaw Road). I'll share more about them, along with other goodies from the plot, as we move closer to the release date. 

Excited? I am. Want to be part of Lark's journey? Here are some ways to get this adventure started off with a bang:

Want to get started on the Creatures of Light trilogy in the meantime?

A new profile picture, a gif to celebrate the release of Kwame Mbalia's Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky, some illustrations from favorite authors at Yallfest, and a sketch of Mae on the walkwire in Woodwalker.

If you've been following along on social media this month, you've seen my daily Inktober pieces focused on climate change. It's been tough spending every day researching new ways we are poisoning our planet, which is why I wanted to use all that time and effort for something good. I hope we can all commit to making small changes in our lives while working toward large-scale changes in our communities and countries. Pick just one small action you plan to take to combat climate change, share it with me, and be entered to win a selection of this month's Inktober pieces. See all the details--plus suggestions for helpful changes--below!

I hope that quote is as encouraging to you as it is to me. It's easy to look at someone who has committed to producing no plastic waste (how do I get my kids' vitamins? Their medicine??), or to only buying local produce (what do I do when my only local market closes in the winter?), or to only taking public transit (there are no options where I live!) and think--why even bother? I can't achieve that same level in my own life
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But the good news is, we don't have to live those lifestyles perfectly. We only have to do a little bit better, do as much as we feasibly can, to make a difference. For me, this month really highlighted how horrific plastics are to our environment, from bands and netting that animals become entangled in to tiny microplastics that they mistakenly eat. My goal is to reduce my plastic waste more than I already do by mixing more of my cleaning and hygiene products at home, increasing the amount of unpackaged produce I buy, and putting in the extra effort to buy in bulk. I also plan to avoid non-recyclable gift wrap this holiday season, using up what I already have in reserve and using decorated brown craft paper for the rest.

So what do you plan to do in your own life? See the giveaway guidelines below and a list of suggestions!

 Here are some suggestions for little ways you and I can make our lives and homes a little cleaner and greener. When put side by side, this list can seem overwhelming. But that’s just it—you don’t have to do all of them. You only need to choose one, or two.

• Switch out a product that comes in plastic packaging for something you can make at home, such as chocolate syrup, granola bars, or toothpaste.
• When out walking or exercising, bring a bag with you to collect trash you see.
• Set your thermostat to switch off or maintain a more moderate temperature when you’re not at home.
• Plant a section of your yard with local, native plant species. Especially seek out pollinator-friendly plants from your local nursery.
• Capture grey water from your sink when you rinse things without soap—use a milk jug with the top cut off, or a small bucket. Use this water in your garden or houseplants.
• Bike or walk to a frequent destination once a week.
• Follow local and nationwide environmental groups on social media. Comment and like their posts to help with their visibility.
• If you’re at an event or conference, bring your own water bottle and leave the disposable bottles sealed.
• Buy only thrifted clothes for a year.
• Read a book about climate change or stewardship, whether it’s a classic like Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, or a recent release like The Ice by Laline Paull.
• Purchase only local produce.
• When you want to open your windows, turn off your heat or AC to avoid wasting energy.
• Call your senators once a week to encourage them to combat climate change.
• Donate to an environmental charity in someone’s name as a holiday or birthday gift.
• Join a local environmental group.
• Patronize your local businesses rather than relying on giants like Amazon.
• Use recycled craft paper in lieu of non-recyclable gift wrap—you can decorate it however you want!
• Swap out one regular meal or beverage you might eat out and make it at home instead.
• Attend a town council meeting or comment on a local project, whether it’s in support or opposition.
• Resolve not to get to-go beverages in disposable mugs—bring your own re-usable one.
• Participate in a scheduled town or park clean-up.
• Talk to your kids about climate change—listen to what they know about it and how they feel about it. Look for picture books or magazines at your local library.
• Attend an education program at a park, zoo, or environmental center. Become a Junior Ranger (you knew that was coming, right?)

Happy Halloween, and thank you for coming on this journey with me! One crisis at a time!

No October art round-up this month---it was all Inktober!

While I can often come up with content for my “For Writers” and “For Artists” blog posts, I sometimes have trouble figuring out what readers are interested in. Do you want character sketches? Deleted passages? JK Rowling-style exposés on secret and possibly irrelevant backstory?

This month, instead of guessing, I decided to let you all tell me what you’re looking for. I finished out September with an Instagram Ask Me Anything, which I promised to answer in this month’s blog post. See your questions and their answers below!

It should go without saying, but there are MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS for the entire trilogy below--continue at your own risk!

I’m going to skip a few of my more frequent choices—usually Rou and Colm, but let’s face it, they’re really main characters, even if they’re not narrators—and go with Rana Maczatl, Gemma’s mother. Rana has gone through a lot of iterations since she first began, but ultimately she emerged as the salty, revolutionary scientist she is now. In the first draft of Creatures of Light, she had much less page time, and my agent was one of several readers who pointed out how compelling a character she is and suggested I expand her role. Her background in entomology was drawn from my dad, and her penchant for political table-flipping from my mom, so she also feels like a familiar fusion of my own parents. I love the juxtaposition of her bitter, ballsy attitude with Gemma’s milder personality and seeing how Rana’s defiance starts to manifest in her daughter. Plus, this political cycle has made "Angry, Tired Mom with a Chip on Her Shoulder" just... so relevant to my life.

Idyllic, up to a point. She and her mother lived in a whimsical cob house on the outskirts of Callais, and Gemma would often traipse after Rana while she conducted field research and illustrated scientific texts. It was an intimate, rosy life until the Prelate caught wind of the clandestine political meetings Rana was hosting. After that, Gemma’s childhood became much more structured and schooled, with the Prelate realizing she could groom her niece into a perfectly-tuned queen to the Seventh King.

In their teens---she jumped him at the archery range after watching him hit all his targets for the first time since he started shooting left-handed. 

Is the Pope Catholic?
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Guys… Colm has so much guilt over just existing. Yes, he feels bad. 

Once his exile sentence is complete, he’ll come back for visits, but with the founding of the university and being starry-eyed for Gemma, his life is in Alcoro now.

When I was writing the trilogy, I actually couldn’t work to anything other than instrumental music. I chalk some of this up to both my kids and my house being very small at the time, and I needed something to drown out Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. So for the trilogy, it was mostly ambient music or instrumental folk. But for The Outlaw Road, things have changed—my kids are now in school, and our house is big enough that I can’t hear every word spoken in every room. So for this duology, it’s been mostly melancholy lady folk, like Sarah Jarosz and the Wailin’ Jennies, particularly “Run Away” by Sarah Jarosz and “Storm Comin’” by the Wailin’ Jennies.

Oh man, this is tough for some of them. Right off the bat, I think the easiest are Valien- Gryffindor (egregious sense of justice, chivalric by default), Mae- Slytherin (cunning, “do what it takes” attitude), and Colm- Hufflepuff (I mean, seriously). Arlen’s probably Gryffindor—all that impulse. Gemma is like… Hufflepuff software running on Ravenclaw hardware. Lyle is definitely Ravenclaw, though the Sorting Hat probably almost chose Slytherin. Rou… doesn’t seem like your typical Hufflepuff, but I think loyalty is his strongest characteristic, though he’s a lot braver than he likes to pretend. Celeno is a Ravenclaw whose friends are all Gryffindors, so he’s always out of his element. Sorcha told the Sorting Hat she wanted to be in Gryffindor, though it probably would have placed her in Hufflepuff otherwise. Ama is a Gryffindor. And Mona… Mona might also be a Slytherin. Yes, I think she must be. If Mae is a “sneak around and tell half-truths for the greater good” Slytherin, Mona is a “so help me I will rewrite the laws of this country to achieve the same end” Slytherin.

Edit: My best friend and Harry Potter aficionado disagrees and says Mona is a Gryffindor. I can see that also, though I'd argue that Gryffindors are reckless in their crusade for justice, while Slytherins are cooler and more methodical. But there's no doubt that Mona's goals extend to pretty much everyone except herself, which moves her out of the "in it for my own gain" region and more firmly into the "scrupulous selflessness" category. 

What are your thoughts? Did I Sort this crowd correctly? Where would you place them? Tell me below!

Thanks to a summer of posting ranger photos and hashtags, I’ve had quite a few people get in touch to ask about becoming a park ranger. Since I’ve already scrambled this summer’s blog post topics anyway, I decided to take a detour from my usual posts and reflect a little on this season and the many routes to get into the coveted flat hat.

All statements and opinions are my own and are not endorsed or maintained by the National Park Service. All photos are my own.
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Read it all after the jump!

So you want to be a park ranger. That’s great! This is an amazing profession full of dedicated, passionate people. I’m going to be talking mostly about the National Park Service, but it’s worth remembering that there are a variety of other organizations to work for—federal institutions like the US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and US Fish and Wildlife Service, state institutions like state parks and recreation areas, county and city park units, private organizations, zoos, museums, and environmental education centers. The possibilities are truly endless. But my work is with the National Park Service (NPS), so that’s who I’ll be focusing on.
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The NPS was created in 1916 to manage the already-existing national parks throughout the country. There are 61 national parks and many more national park units—419 to be exact, which includes things like national battlefields, historic sites, parkways, wild and scenic riverways, monuments… the list goes on. Despite this spectrum of sites, all rangers wear the standard “green and gray” uniform, the NPS patch, and the iconic Stetson “flat hat.” Our badges change a little with division (explained below), and there are different uniform parts and tools that vary by job and season, but overall we’re supposed to look as cookie-cutter as possible.

Almost everyone you see pictured above is a seasonal ranger, hired just for the summer. The exception is Ranger Annie, our supervisor (far left), who is a year-round permanent ranger. This is the structure for most parks, with temporary hires brought on for peak visitation season and then unhired (fired... terminated...) at the end. The majority of rangers start out working seasonally before landing their first permanent job. Aside from this, probably the most important thing to understand is that there are many different kinds of rangers, and it’s good to know which kind you’re most interested in. Here are the basic categories:

This is my job—an education ranger. We staff the visitor centers, give guided programs, and act as front-line representatives for the park. In many cases, we’re the only rangers the typical visitor will come in contact with. Customer service is a huge part of this job—if you love working with people, prefer general knowledge over a specialized field, and enjoy transforming factual information into engaging presentations, this is your route!

These are essentially park police, and they require a lot of extra training beyond the other fields (think weapons, EMT, and combat training). They patrol the park, keeping people and the resources safe. They take lead on responding to medical, legal, and resource-based emergencies. If you’re interested in environmental law, justice, or resource protection and want a physical challenge, this is the avenue for you.

These folks work directly with the park resources, whether it’s a bear, a canyon, an archaeological site, a dark night sky, an invasive plant… the list is endless. They’re specialists in their field and are relied upon to make expert decisions on the safety and wellbeing of the stuff inside the park. If you have a deep interest in a specific field and perhaps don’t want to interact with hordes of visitors face-to-face, this is the perfect choice.

One of the larger divisions, these rangers maintain the facilities and resources in the park. Like working with your hands and maybe not dealing directly with people? Maintenance rangers are crucial to a park’s upkeep.

This can be a subset of either maintenance or resource management, depending on the park, but it’s worth noting as a separate group. These are the rugged rangers many people think of—patrolling remote areas of the park on foot, horseback, or boat and doing everything from cleaning campsites to checking trail conditions to enforcing bear safety procedures. Crave that wide open wilderness and a little risk? Check this box.

These are our bosses. They’re the ones who make the big decisions for the park and see that laws and policy are carried out properly. Many of them start out in other divisions before rising through the ranks, though not all. If you’re interested in the politics of running a park and enacting big-picture change, this is the place to be.

There are other categories of rangers, often subsets of the ones above (just in my division, we’re often split based on rangers who work with the general public, and those who do curriculum-based programming with schools). And the joke is that no matter what the division, there are always “other duties as assigned” that fit under no neat job description. But these are good categories to use as a springboard.
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Obviously these different divisions involve different routes to get there. Rangers are a diverse breed; some of us have had our sights set on this profession since our first childhood vacations, while others of us stumbled into the green and gray almost accidentally. Every ranger has a different story of how they started working for the NPS, but there are a few common threads that might help aspiring rangers.

Probably the most important thing is an undergraduate degree—but this can be a broad brush. I’ve worked with rangers with backgrounds in everything from environmental science to history to theater. So much of it depends on what kind of work you want to do—want to work in one of the big rural parks? Consider the natural sciences, like biology or geology. Prefer a smaller national monument, battlefield, or historic structure? Look at cultural studies, history, or archaeology. Want to work as a front-line interpretive ranger? Try education or even theater. Prefer to work more with the resources than the people? Choose a field tailored to your area of interest—astronomy, marine biology, paleontology, or a thousand other pursuits.
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Not sure what exactly you want to do, and prefer a more one-size-fits-all foundation? Go the route I did—get yourself a couple of degrees in Parks and Protected Area Management, or even just Parks and Rec. Yes, it’s a real field of study, and no, I’ve never watched the show. I earned my BS and MS in Parks and Protected Area Management from Clemson University, focusing my Master’s work on the educational programs rangers give and how to make them more effective at boosting stewardship and support for parks. During training week for my first job in the green and gray, I opened my materials and saw my research staring back at me on page one. How cool is that!  

One thing the NPS likes to see is that you, the applicant, know what it means to work for the NPS—how the organization is structured, how different divisions work, and what it means to be a representative of the United States government. To that effect, previous experience as an intern, volunteer, student hire, or concessionaire can go a long way. Each park is different in this regard—at one park I worked, interns did much of the same work as rangers, while at another, we barely saw them at all. Some parks have really robust youth conservation programs, while others don’t have much to speak of. In parks that have concessions (hotels, restaurants, etc.), many rangers start out working for those companies before applying for government positions. So it’s worth looking at a park or park unit close to you and seeing what opportunities they have. Despite the number of units in the NPS, it’s a relatively intimate organization, and a positive reference from a supervisor in one unit can do good things for you when you apply to your dream park.
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Personally, I have two semester practicums and one summer internship—working in the office of a previous National Park Service Director (she’s now a reference for me), doing interpretation at a non-NPS site in New Mexico, and interning at Great Smoky Mountains NP.

While some locations have small applicant pools, many parks are in high demand, with hundreds of applicants for just a few positions. So it always helps to have something unique that makes you stand out from the crowd. For me, it’s a Master’s degree in interpretive programming, but my art skills help too—it means I can create materials for use in my programs and throughout the park, like the Solar Eclipse posters I did below in 2017.

Foreign languages are also huge benefits. Parks get a wide swath of visitors, and having someone at the desk who knows French or Mandarin or German is a major asset. One language I’ve personally bumped into multiple times in uniform and wished I knew? Sign language. Along with French, that’s next on my list.
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Other resumé boosters include things like military service (the NPS loves hiring vets), summer camp experience, time spent overseas, community activism (particularly if it relates to the resources in the park), and experience with diverse audiences in a variety of settings. If you have something like that in your toolbox, highlight it in your resumé and cover letter.

Seems silly to mention, but to apply for these jobs, you actually have to be really tuned in to when the postings go live. The application process is currently in a state of flux, and last year a cap was introduced to the number of applicants hiring officials would take. So even if a park posting was open for a week, if the 200-person applicant pool was met on day two, that posting closed.

Summer job postings generally start to go live in October, November, and December, and they’re all posted on USAJobs.gov. This is where all federal job announcements are listed, so you’ll want to tailor a search to the NPS positions you’re specifically interested in (during hiring season, I set mine to alert me of new postings every week). Applying generally involves answering a questionnaire about your experience and submitting a resumé and school transcripts, if applicable. Make sure the language in your resumé clearly reflects the questionnaire prompts so hiring officials can see your answers backed up with experience. Cover letters are optional but always a good idea.

When possible, apply the same day postings open, so you don’t get cut off by a cap or posting window. I’ve spent several a Thanksgiving holiday holed away submitting documents to be sure they were sent in time. It makes for a stressful few weeks in the fall, but it’s worth it to get your documents in. Be on time!

The NPS is a large, rigid, complicated organization, which means that rangers who can be flexible on dates and locations are highly prized. You may have a leg up if you can work “shoulder” seasons—that is, the spring and fall on either side of a busy summer season. And even though lots of people want jobs in the big, iconic parks, if you’re willing to work at one of the smaller, less popular sites—and there are many wonderful, less-traveled sites operated by the NPS—you can get your foot in the door and get yourself rehire status at a different park. Rehire status can mean everything for a seasonal ranger—just recently, rehire went from being only valid at a park you’ve worked to being valid for the same level position at any unit in the system. So by working a GS-5 seasonal interpretive position at Yellowstone this summer, I’m qualified for rehire as a GS-5 interp…everywhere. Glacier, Denali, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Hawaii Volcanoes… it’s a pretty good deal. But! This being the federal government, nobody’s sure if this policy will last. So as always, flexibility is a key attribute when taking these jobs.

To do this job, you have to love it. That sounds romantic, but in many cases, it’s a frustrating reality of working for a massive, underfunded government organization. Rangers are expected to put up with a lot of human resource complications that private corporations could never get away with—but the NPS can because they know we love these jobs. That’s not a dig at the NPS, it’s just a reality, voiced by plenty of other rangers besides myself. Priorities change when the federal administration changes. Policies that are touted as park law one year are scrapped the next. Paperwork reaches sky-high. To be a ranger, you have to love being a ranger.
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Obviously nobody loves anything all the time, and there are definitely times when the job becomes—well, a job. But that’s why it’s so wonderful to be surrounded by passionate colleagues—burn out is real, but so is your coworker flying into the office screaming about the sandhill cranes they saw on their guided hike, or the relief of hearing about a successful search and rescue on the radio, or the sweetness of watching parents tear up as you swear their kids in as Junior Rangers. I’ve found that it’s at my lowest points that I’m caught off-guard by the beauty of this profession. 

Being a ranger isn’t all wilderness and looking great (though man, it feels good to wear that hat). There’s a lot of repetition, tedium, and problem-solving involved. But overall, it’s a rewarding and enviable job, acting as caretakers for America’s most special places and helping visitors make emotional connections to their public lands. So you want to be ranger? Excellent. Hop on board. I’ll see you in the flat hat.

What parks have you worked in?
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (2010, 2016, 2017), and Yellowstone National Park (2015, 2019), plus a summer of conducting research in twelve more units including Grand Canyon, Bryce, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, Navajo, Chaco Canyon, and several historic sites.

What is your favorite part of the job?
I love the privilege of working in some of our country’s greatest natural spaces for whole summers, but the thing that really drives me is the effort to create new stewards. If I can deliver a program that makes a person want to explore something new in the park, or question their assumptions, or make a commitment to a greener, kinder world—that’s success for me. That’s what gets me fired up.

What is your least favorite?
The complex funhouse tunnel that is park service bureaucracy. The way policies shift with the administration and seasonal workers are asked to put up with indignities that wouldn’t be tolerated elsewhere. I’m also at a disadvantage because I have a family, and many parks don’t have family housing. Housing, not programming or staff, has been the biggest factor in where I’ve ended up from summer to summer.

What is your dream park?
I have a top three—Olympic, Denali, and Glacier, plus a score of others like North Cascades, Glacier Bay, Sequoia-Kings Canyon, Grand Teton, and Yosemite. Unfortunately, I’ve been hired at several of them but had to turn them down because they didn’t have family housing.

What is your favorite program topic?
In Great Smokies, it’s the small-scale biodiversity, like the incredible firefly species, salamanders, macroinvertebrates, and traditional herbs and medicines (this should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who has read Woodwalker). In Yellowstone, it’s the walks through the geyser basins, where I can draw people in to the unique personalities of each bizarre feature and spin a holistic image of park preservation.

How does your work as an author/illustrator intersect with being a ranger?
I can’t possibly separate the three. My time as a ranger fuels my artwork by giving me tons of material for plein air painting, and it fuels my books by inspiring new settings, new adventures, and new characters. But it works in reverse, too—my penchant for storytelling often funnels into how I write my park programs. I always want my programs to have an arc to them, often called the “so what?” in ranger speak. No matter what factual information I’m presenting, I want there ultimately to be a story underneath.

If you have more questions about rangering, please feel free to get in touch, or take a look at the National Park Service website. And next time you’re in a park—thank a ranger!

Lots of plein air watercolors from Yellowstone, a pen and ink sketch, a coloring page I designed for Founders Day 2019, and staff gifts---watercolor wildlife for each ranger I worked with this summer, and a poster of the Grant Village team.