Author Archives: Khaliela

Book Review: Snow City

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Snow City, a novel by G. A. Kathryns  
Available on Amazon for $12.99

Hooked from the first sentence!

“Sometimes one has to dream very hard to keep oneself sane.”  From the moment I read the opening line in the prologue, I was hooked.  As the book progressed I wondered, who is really doing the dreaming?  What reality is she trying to escape?  Is this a futuristic dystopian SciFi novel or an exposé on mental illness?  And who is that dead girl?

Snow City is the creation of Echo Japonica, a reclusive guitarist, who strives to live in a perfect world.  A world that she created.  Unfortunately, the nightmares of reality spill into Echo’s dream of perfection for Snow City.  Those nightmares threaten to cause the entire system to collapse, taking Echo with it.  As Echo puts is, “Here [at the Blue Rose] I can be the simple, black-garbed and blonde-braided guitarist I was months ago, before gangsters and lost ghost have entered my life.  But gangsters and lost ghosts have entered my life . . .” Continue reading →

Building an Author Website

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This is the second part of a workshop I hosted for the Palouse Writers Guild on Saturday, July 28, 2018.  To see the first part of the workshop, click here: Building An Author Platform.

ESTABLISHING YOUR AUTHOR PERSONA

Even introverts publishing under a pen name need an author website and that’s why it’s absolutely vital to contemplate your author personal at the onset.  Some people are wholly themselves online, while others may use a pseudonym and have an online persona different from who they are in real life.  It is essential that authors figure out their persona BEFORE beginning to build their website; the website becomes the author’s identity.

 When editors, agents, and publishers receive queries from prospective authors one of the things they do is Google the author because they want to see the size and scope of platform, prior works, etc.  Readers also look for author websites.  The whole point of a website is making yourself and your work easy to find. Without a website the author simply does not exist. Continue reading →

Building an Author Platform

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I presented the following information at a workshop hosted by the Palouse Writers Guild on Saturday, July 28, 2018.  The second part of the presentation will appear in a separate blog post.

WHAT IS AN AUTHOR PLATFORM?

Author Platform Definition: The ability to sell written content (books, short stories, magazine articles, etc) because of who you are or who you can reach.  Simply put, a platform is your visibility as an author in the communities in which you participate. Continue reading →

Workshop: Author Platforms and Websites

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Do you find the concept of promoting yourself as an author a daunting task?

Khaliela Wright will demystify the concept of an author platform and provide real world examples authors can employ to promote themselves and their work.  Her talk will cover avenues to publication, the importance of networking, effective use social media, publicity, and the necessity of an author website.  Judah Wright will lead a hands-on workshop in which authors will purchase their domain names, discuss options for website hosting, and build their own WordPress website, including choosing a theme, customizing your website, adding widgets and plugins, and building content.

Continue reading →

Summer Lovin’

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June . . . love is in the air.  It’s the traditional month for weddings.  The solstice is upon us and the days are filled with light.  The wedding month traces its roots back to Celtic origins and the story of a marriage which resulted in an unnaturally long day.

Celtic mythology states that Dagda and Danu loved each other so much that they married in secret and hid themselves on the Earth in order to make love away from the prying eyes of the other gods. Their marathon love-making session lasted nine days and nine nights.  When Danu finally climaxed a great rush of water issued from her, creating the Danube River.  From their union the goddess conceived.  To prevent discovery of her pregnancy Dagda harnessed the sun and held it in place until Danu gave birth, thus their son was conceived and born on the same day.

The marriage of Dagda and Danu represents the union of a tribal god and a mother goddess, uniting land and people, a concept that remained popular in the sacral marriages of kings to their goddesses in later generations.  If the king upheld the duties of a husband well, the land and his people prospered.  Fail to show adequate love, respect, and devotion to the Goddess and the kingdom would fall into disarray, just like the household of any unhappy marriage.  And that is the whole point of writing today: sometimes relationships stumble. Continue reading →

DYSTOPIA Launch Party

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All the hard work has paid off and now it’s time to celebrate! The SFCC Pullman Creative Writing Club is proud to announce the publication of their anthology, DYSTOPIA.  Authors will be at Thomas Hammer Coffee on Wednesday, June 6th to read sections of their work and be available to autograph copies for the public. Coffee and munchies will be provided.

Copies of the book are available for purchase from Bruised Books in Pullman and BookPeople of Moscow.  On June 4th copies will be available from And Books, Too, in Clarkston.  In addition, Aunties Bookstore and Giant Nerd Books in Spokane have agreed to sell the book just as soon as I can get a few copies to them.  Bookworms can read for free by using their library card.  Print copies of the book have been distributed to libraries in Whitman, Asotin, Latah, Nez Perce, and Spokane counties.

Books are available for sale on Amazon for $9.99 or $2.99 for a Kindle version.  Continue reading →

Independent Bookstore Workshop

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Are you a self-published author or published with a small press?

This workshop with Carol Price will cover what it means to be an IndiBound Bookstore and what independent booksellers want from local authors who self-publish or are published by smaller presses.  Carol will also cover the listing requirements for placing your book in her store, along with the services BookPeople of Moscow offers to local authors.

Continue reading →

Idaho Magazine, May 2018

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My story about treating Bruce to dinner in Harrison for his birthday is featured in the May 2018 issue of IDAHO Magazine. You can read the whole story for free by following the link.  (I suspect the free read will only be offered for a short time, so if you’re curious, read it now!)

IDAHO Magazine rules state that authors cannot mention businesses unless they are advertisers, so the restaurant where we dinned is not specifically mentioned in the story.  However, I am please to say that we dinned at The Landing.  The proprietors, John and Shawna Nelson, out did themselves to provide a perfect evening and I look forward to dining there again, when Bruce returns the favor and treats me for my birthday in June.

More pictures from around the area are below, I hope you enjoy them.

Continue reading →

Zucchini Bandits Receives Honors

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My story, Zucchini Bandits, won a Judges’ Choice Award in the 2018 IDAHO Magazine fiction contest.

Zucchini Bandits is a short story about an unlikely pair. Delfred Long was forced into an early retirement after surviving a heart-attack. Ronnie is a precocious seven-year-old. Neither are looking forward to spending the summer together. Over the course of the story the grandfather and granddaughter duo bond while engaging in zucchini related mischief and mayhem.

I have considered writing a series of short stories involving the adventures of Del and Ronnie, then compiling them into a chapter book.  Who knows what mischief the pair will be up to next?

You can see other award winning stories on the IDAHO Magazine website.