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Some of you may have noticed my name change from Wendy Terrien to Wendy M. Barnhart. What’s up with that, you may ask?
Award for The Forge of Bonds
BLACK LIVES MATTER, LOVE IS LOVE, WEAR A DAMN MASK
The Forge of Bonds is out into the world!
THANK YOU to everyone who came to the book launch at Tattered Cover Book Store on February 29th, celebrated with us afterword at Alamo Drafthouse, as well as those who sent positive and supportive messages from near and far. Trite though it sounds, I could not do this writing thing without all of you, and I appreciate you TONS!
2020 is here!
And it will be teeming with vision puns. :)
But besides the pun-fest, what have you planned for this year? What big goals are you focused (pun intended) on?
The official announcement is here!
THE FORGE OF BONDS - next in the Jason Lex series - is coming to a bookstore near you on 25 February 2020!
Color me giddy!
And yes, I do love how the bolts travel from one cover in the the series to the next. Is that not cool??? (Don’t tell me if you hate it. Let me live in my happy place.) :)
2019 was my third year as a guest author at Denver Pop Culture Con (DPCC) and once again it did not disappoint. I was honored to be invited and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to tons of smart readers, participating in several panels with impressive authors, and even getting my fangirl on with a few of the celebrities in attendance. (Zachary Levi!)
2019 started with excellent intentions and planning, but as they say, the best laid plans… January got away from me, February got away from me, and then March—also slipping through my grasp—brought me to a mini-meltdown and I announced to my friends and family I was sequestering myself in my writing cave until early July.
2018 is winding down and I’m thinking about what I know is happening in 2019, and wondering about what I don’t know. The unknown keeps life interesting, right? I mean, if we knew exactly what was going to happen each and every day, what would be the point?
Maybe the fact that we don’t know what is yet to come is exactly the point. Doesn’t matter what surprises come our way in life, just that they come — good, bad, interesting, confusing, whatever. Yes?
I was honored and delighted to be a guest author at Denver Comic Con 2018 and I had a rousing good time! Love the people that run the organization, and I love the Pop Culture Classroom mission and focus. It's hard not to be happy to play even a small role in supporting their success.
And who doesn't love supporting an amazing organization while having fun at the same time? Denver Comic Con was non-stop action and non-stop fun. First I must say THANK YOU to everyone who stopped by my booth to chat about books and dogs and cosplay.
I shared a few copies of The Rampart Guards and in turn received a delightful surprise that I love so much I want to preserve it forever here on my blog.
Thank you to all the students for the wonderful note! You made my day! :)
I mentioned in my last blog post that I'd been selected by Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers as a finalist for the Independent Writer of the Year award. Well, on Saturday, July 15th, I learned I won the title.
Wow!
I've been thinking about how to put into sincere and honest words how honored and humbled and amazed I feel about this award, but I've come to the conclusion that I can't do it.
Yeah, I know I'm supposed to use exclamation points sparingly. But this is a post that screams for them -- at least as far as my brain is concerned. So please prepare yourselves, dear readers, because I've received a lot of AMAZING news in the past few weeks.
I am THRILLED to share the news that THE RAMPART GUARDS was named to Best Books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews. Wowie!!!
Visit Kirkus Reviews to see the full list, or click here to see a subset that includes THE RAMPART GUARDS.
Yes, 2016 has been a challenging year in many ways. But as it relates to the launch of my debut novel, this year has been amazing, and I am extremely thankful for every single moment.
Sadly, or perhaps happily if you're somewhere where the heat / humidity / bugs / insert-element-of-summer-that-displeases-you has become too much, summer is coming to an end. In Colorado, that means cooler evenings that trigger leaves to change to fall colors. And autumn is one of my favorite seasons. Not that I'm looking forward to snow, but it can be delightful as well.
THE RAMPART GUARDS is now an audiobook, narrated by the talented Brian Callanan. To celebrate, I'm giving away five copies of the audiobook, and hope the winners would be so kind as to write a review on Audible.com after you've listened to it and enjoyed it.
In addition to my own writing, I’m part of a talented group of writers, smart women every one. In fact, we’re not just a group – we’re a publisher. We call ourselves Wicked Ink Books.
Last year, while basking (read: writing, eating, and drinking wine) in the mountains of Breckenridge, Colorado, we birthed Wicked Ink Books and decided to produce at least one anthology per year. I’m excited to announce that our first anthology is ready to be released into the world. It’s called TICK TOCK: SEVEN TALES OF TIME. Check out our fantastic cover:
Happy 2016!
This year is off to a big start for me. THE RAMPART GUARDS, my debut novel, launches into the world on February 26th. Along with that, I now have an author page on Amazon, and another one on Goodreads. Crazy!
I also received this review from Foreword Clarion Reviews -- made me giddy!
If you want to celebrate the release of my novel, please join us for the launch party at BookBar on February 26th. I'll also be signing books at Tattered Cover Bookstore - Aspen Grove in March (final date yet tbd). Current info is on my Events page.
I have a new website!
Isn't it pretty? Even if you don't think it's pretty, please lie and tell me that it is. And feel free to embellish.
But honestly, how can you not think it's pretty when the facts say otherwise? After all, the homepage features our adorable pups, Maggie, Boon, and Shea. (Okay, and my thighs and Kevin's thighs, but they don't really qualify as pretty or adorable.)
Welcome and thank you for stopping by during the Writing Process Blog Tour. It’s a fun opportunity for us writer folk to not only share a bit about how our writing process works (and it varies from writer to writer to writer), but also to look a little more closely at our own process and make sure we’re being as efficient and productive as possible. Or as much as we possibly can be on any given day.
THE EMOTION THESAURUS: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, is one of the best writing tools I’ve discovered. Angela and Becca run the fab website, Writers Helping Writers.
Are you sometimes challenged with showing versus telling? This book is for you.
Do you find yourself using the same body language over and over again when you’re trying to convey a particular emotion? This book is for you.
Between critique groups, writing contests and feedback for friends, I’ve read a lot of writers’ work lately. And the thing that jumped out at me, over and over, is the fact that the majority of those stories have characters whose names start with the letter A.
You have failed.
I have failed.
For most of us, failure is a tough thing. The arrows in this photo show success is a different direction than failure. That’s wrong. Those arrows should be pointing the same direction.
Fear of failure paralyzes people and discourages the desire to try. And why? Because failure is powerfully negative. We believe someone may think less of us. And we might think less of ourselves. A lot less.
This was posted by Randy Ingermanson last week and I want to share it here. And this applies to everybody, not just writers.
Your Creative SuperpowersIf you’re a human being, then you’re creative.If you’re a novelist, then you’re very creative.
I attended the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference a few weeks ago. It was informative and social and fun. I could give you a report on all things writerly that I learned, but there have been plenty of posts about that already. Instead, I thought I’d share some tidbits from one particular workshop: Mock Crime Scene. If you like crime shows, you might find some of these nuggets interesting.
Falling in Love with Joseph Smith: Finding God in the Unlikeliest of Places byJane BarnesMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
This is a review of the “uncorrected manuscript for limited distribution.”
I was very interested in reading this book. Having grown up in Salt Lake City as a non-Mormon, I was curious about what would bring this woman to a place, in her adult life, where she decided to convert to Mormonism.