January, the ultimate new beginning, is a time of reflection and making goals. January 2020 begins a new year and a new decade. It also begins my first full year of retirement, and I’m looking forward to lots of travel as well as time spent with family. I’m also looking forward to new adventures with the Paper Lantern Writers! For a teacher, retirement isn’t as much of an adjustment as it might be for other professions. After all, we have every summer to practice being retired. Nothing compares, though, to the feeling of having your own time to yourself every day. That means more writing!

In January of 2012, my first book was published. On a Wing and a Dare took me seven years to write. Set in medieval Wales, it is a coming-of-age story about two teenagers living in a village of flying horses and their caretakers. I stopped and completely rewrote the book twice. I doubted myself every day. But as a teacher, I assigned narratives to my students all the time. I wanted to show I could complete a story and have it hold together. In January of 2012, my writing career officially began when I self-published my Young Adult historical fantasy and started calling myself an author. So this January, join me in celebrating the book birthday of my first book! Available on Amazon!

In 2020, I will publish my fifth book, The Aloha Spirit. It’s a beginning of a new sort. I haven’t published anything since 2014, so I am restarting my career. This time around I’m more invested in writing as a career, and have more dedicated time for it. The Aloha Spirit follows Dolores’s quest to find the aloha spirit within herself—and to escape the abuse of her alcoholic husband. She flees Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor for California, where she seeks to make a new life for herself. But her past isn’t so easily left behind. Available now for preorder on Amazon!

My books are all historical fantasy or historical fiction. This year I will begin writing in a new genre, finishing my sixth book. It is a memoir of teaching over the last twenty years. The first draft of the book is done, detailing the journey from teaching before school shootings and computers to today’s classroom. Many people have discussed the book with me and are excited to read it. My goal is to deliver a book that lives up to that anticipation. Stay tuned!