Meet Betsy
Welcome to my virtual studio. As both a writer and designer, I’m driven by a curiosity about the world. In my studio, I take that curiosity and use it to create new worlds. I write for kids and adults as well as a good deal of freelance non-fiction. Explore to find out more about me, my books, and my thoughts on writing as well as the thoughts of friends who stop by the studio. If you’ve got something you’d like to share reach out to me through the contact form. I’d love to hear from you. Scroll down to read what’s been happening in the studio.
Unqualified Success
Success cannot be measured in numbers. I use only one criterium when judging my books— How much fun they were to write. I have achieved unqualified success.
Weeding Your Creative Garden
By mid-summer of this year, whenever I went into the creative garden in my mind the sun had become so blocked out by dark clouds of deadlines, commitments, worries, and lists that nothing would grow. The only solution was to . . .
Summer Hiatus
Summer is a time for rest and in that spirit, I'll be taking time off to get outside, be with loved ones and play creatively. We’ll be back online with more content in early fall. In the meantime, there will still be things cooking . . .
The Joy Percentage
Life gets difficult. Writing sometimes feels like work. Guest author Hadi Dhaliwal asks herself: “How much time do you spend on the thing you truly love?”
Building Doors
When a publisher contacted me about a submission I sent her over a year ago it felt like a message from another lifetime on another planet. Since I sent it life had blown up and to deal with the fall out I had to re-evaluate what I thought made me ‘legitimate’ as a writer. I had to build a new door to where I wanted to be.
Love! That's all we can say about the short story winners of the Care Anthology. We can’t wait to share their stories with the world. The anthology will be out in late-April. Sign-up for the newsletter to hear when it comes online for pre-order.
Cut the Should
Years ago I was rattling off a list of worries to my therapist when she said, “Stop shoulding all over yourself.”
In shock, I said, “But I want to do all these things. They will help me succeed. They will make me happy.”
To which my very patient therapist asked “Will the happiness they bring outweigh the miserable feeling of carrying around a giant pile of should?”
Welcome to the Studio
Welcome to the Words Undbound Studio. Though a lot of people have suggested I start a website over the years, I resisted. I am a self-confessed webinar junky, a lover of critique groups and conferences. I have a lot to say, but I thought a blog would steal time from my own works in progress.
Then pandemic.
Isolation helped me realize how much I relied on my writing community. My writing is not a solo act, so why should my blog be. When a few of my best writing pals agreed to add their voices I realized what I wanted to create wasn’t a blog but a studio: a creative (virtual) space for writers to come together, practice their craft, share their knowledge and find inspiration. We’ve got a lot of great stuff lined up. We hope you’ll come back again and again to read, comment, and maybe even add your voice to the studio.