Updates and Author Headshots!

Happy Friday, Aledan Merfolk!

If you follow me on Twitter, I promised yesterday that I’d show off my author headshots today! If that’s what you’re here for, feel free to skip the update and scroll down for the photos 🙂 If you want to know what’s been going on during my rollercoaster of a season, stick around.

Last we spoke, Charleston had just melted from the snowstorm that shut down the city for four days. I had a cold, and my husband wasn’t feeling too great either. He continued to not feel too great, and went to the doctor. The doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but it was clear that something was really wrong. He was sent to specialist after expensive specialist, and we met our yearly deductible literally on the day of his diagnosis (and thank gods for that, because I had my own health scare). Basically, his kidney had a heart attack, and got infected. They gave him a couple rounds of antibiotics and everything turned out just fine.

During this whole “what is wrong with Hubs?” thing, I had another heart episode (you might remember the first one from back in 2012 when I found out I got into the agent round of GUTGAA). And even though I’ve had one of these episodes before, I was still ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that I was having a heart attack (which is a symptom of having a heart attack in women, so pay attention to your bodies ladies). So I went to the cardiologist, who said I did not have a heart attack, but set me up with a heart monitor to wear for an entire week. Of course nothing happened while I had the monitor on, but a few days after it was off? Another episode. And the next week? I literally thought I was going to die I had such a bad episode. Hubs was gone that night and I absolutely thought he was going to come home to a corpse. I was freezing, and sweating, and shaking, and nauseous, and convinced I was dying. And an hour later, it stopped, and I felt fine, and I realized that all these “heart episodes” are actually really long panic attacks in the middle of the freaking night. The next time it started I was prepared and it went away, and I haven’t had one since.

So…yay?

Things got a lot better after the health issues were figured out. I dyed my hair magenta and blonde! I got my author headshots! I visited my niece for her first birthday and she is the most adorable tiny human in the world <3

The Science in Fiction anthology I’m a part of was officially announced and the cover was revealed!

“Inside, readers will find actionable, authoritative advice for idea generation, realistic worldbuilding, technical accuracy, and correct yet engaging descriptions of scientific details. Leveraging concepts found in popular novels, television series, and films such as Game of Thrones, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Martian, Westworld and more, this book will appeal to novelists and short story writers as well as screenwriters.”

I also read a bunch and CPed, but you knew that already.

Ok, so now for the fun part! But first I have to thank: Clare Buechel at StudiO8 for making my hair match my mermaid’s, Jasmine Jones at Alter Image Charleston for making my face look like I’d actually slept with her gorgeous makeup skills, and Sirena White-Singleton at Aneris Photography for the gorgeous photos and the super fun afternoon <3 (I also work with Sirena at the lab – go science creatives!)

First up, the official author headshot:

And a bunch of others just for fun ^_^

Ok, that seems like enough me even for me. (Also thank you to Roselle Lim for the adorable purrmaid that features in the photos!)

Last but not least, I’m starting a Newsletter! If you want to get book news, for both Speak the Ocean and Science in Fiction, as well as anything else that might come down the pipeline, sign up on the sidebar or right here!