Melissa Westemeier

Time has slid through my grubby fingers since I attended UntitledTown nearly two weeks ago. One never knows how these events will turn out, or, more specifically, whether PEOPLE will turn out. Best a gal can do is hold her breath, prepare her materials, and show up. I arrived early to check in and receive my marching orders while asking for clarification about one item on the schedule. In Conversation was meant to be me and two other writers talking in a room and anyone coul

It's RASPBERRY SEASON! When I was growing up my grandma had a raspberry patch behind her garage and I thought the coolest thing was picking and eating my fill back there in the summertime. I couldn't wait to start my own patch, and my sweet neighbors Jim and Janet, donated my first canes from their abundant garden. After we built our shed in in 2013, I transplanted those canes and added more to this strip between the building and the sidewalk. It's an ideal location because t

I've spent the last few months in revision mode while managing some marketing details for the Nun the Wiser Mysteries. Revisions take a lot of energy, they're a bit like doing a puzzle as you try to slot in the best-shaped scene or line of dialogue to smooth out a manuscript so the entire thing flows nicely and all the readers' questions get answered and any confusion gets laid to rest. Revising a novel means attending to LAYERS of text, including character development, word

I haven't written much here lately, but trust me, I have been writing. A few times a week I hike at a local nature preserve, a habit that...