Ryan Spires

Imagine you just heard a stirring new song that immediately grabs your attention. It's from a band you never heard of and you do a little internet research. Turns out the band/song was a carefully planned social experiment. Researchers compiled thousands of popular songs and analyzed them with a highly sophisticated computer program named BERT. BERT found all of the patterns that bend our ears and hearts and spat out a unique song using those mathematical patterns. I can picture a few different reactions on a spectrum ranging from: "Cool! When is BERT going on tour?" "I don't care what the process is, I just like the song." "That's cheap. Creativity shouldn't be hijacked, researched, cataloged, and replicated by a machine. It should be natural!" The set up is a bit of an exaggeration, but the premise is reflective of the writing process. There are so many rules and guidelines when it comes to writing a novel. Ranging from the structu...

The news didn't surprise my writing group two years ago. One of our members, Sarah Ahiers , had finally landed an agent, the first step in a writer's dream. Three years of querying three novels, and each one received a high response rate, and the early drafts of   ASSASSIN'S HEART were great. You didn't have to be Nostradamus to predict that her finely woven YA Fantasy tale was going to hit the big time. Sarah's agent nabbing quickly turned into an auction for her book, which catapulted into a two book deal with HarperTeen. That all happened as a few week blur. The traditional publishing model is a slow-moving behemoth, despite the initial sprint.  She had to wait nearly two years before her book finally launched. The moment has arrived.   Isn't this a gorgeous cover? I'm excited to read the story in its final form. If you're a fan of YA fantasy, or just fantasy in general, I would recommend this book. Sarah has crafted a rich, vivid, worl...