Updates: April 2026
Hello and welcome to my April 2026 update!
I have a few things going on at the moment that I wanted to take a moment to walk through here. Mainly, I wanted to update you on events I’ll be doing, writing progress, and an adjustment to the frequency of blog posts.
Also—and I only mention this because it’s going out on April 1st—this is not an April Fools prank. I don’t think anything in here could be interpreted that way, but I know anytime I encounter anything on April 1st a little part of me is always worried it’s a prank so I want to alleviate that worry now. To the best of my current knowledge, everything below is accurate, so let’s get into it!
Book Fairs
One of my goals this year has been to get my book in front of more people and, so far, I’m set up with a few events to help with that!
I’m hoping to nab a few more as the year moves along, but right now, here’s some of what I’m locked in for.
DSM Book Festival Saturday, May 2, 11:15 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. at 4801 Franklin Ave., Des Moines, IA
If you’re in Des Moines a month from today, you can catch me at (roughly) the first hour-and-a-half of the DSM Book Fair as a guest indie author. There will be other indie authors and traditionally published authors and they usually have food trucks and live music and talk backs. I think I’ve generally at least checked out DSM Book Festival every year for the past four years and I pretty much always enjoy it!
DemiCon37: Author Showcase Saturday, May 2, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. at 4800 Merle Hay Rd, Urbandale, IA
It’s not a typo, I’m doing another event the same day as the DSM Book Festival. DemiCon is a … This is the first year it’s had this dedicated author showcase, so I’m excited to hop into things and see what it’s like! Since there is an overlap in time between this and the DSM Book Fair, I’ve tagged a friend to hold things down during the first portion of DemiCon, but I should be there for the final five hours of the event if you come looking for me.
GR LitFest’s Young Adult Author Panel Wednesday, June 24, 6-8 p.m. at 966 Cherry St SE, Grand Rapids, MI
I haven’t attended GR LitFest before, but this is a week of events held back in my hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I’m going to be starting things off there by doing a panel on YA writing with three other authors: Jessica K. Foster, Melanie Hooyenga, and Benjamin Kamphuis. The festival has a bunch of other events and book fairs through the week, so if you think you’re going to check me out at this one, you should also take a look at their other offerings!
GR LitFest’s K-12 Book Fair Saturday, June 27, 12-4 p.m. [Location TBD], Grand Rapids, MI
The Saturday following the GR Lit Fest’s Young Adult Author Panel there’s also going to be a K-12 Book Fair! I’m still waiting on the exact location but that should be apparent a little closer to the event.
11th Annual Indie Author Book Expo Saturday, June 27, 12-5 p.m., 217 5th St., West Des Moines, IA
The Indie Author Book Expo is another Iowa event. As you can probably tell, this is one that features a bunch of indie authors in a very Book Fair-esque fashion. This is another one I’m double booked for, but my plan is to tag a friend to booth this event for me while I cover the one in Grand Rapids that same day.
Leaf & Letter Book Botique in Mississippi
So this isn’t technically a Book Fair. Rather, it’s a mobile book mobile that was kind enough to pick up my book and sell it from their mobile store front. Leaf & Letter has a list of events they appear at over the next few months. So, even if you won’t find me in the mobile bookshop, you should be able to find one of my books on their shelves if you spot it at one of the Mississippi events these vendors appear at.
Writing Progress
As I’ve mentioned before, the main thing I’m focused on writing at the moment is the sequel to Light Keeper Chronicle: The Unspoken Prophecy. The bad news is, I planned to have a completed draft this past November and that certainly didn’t happen.
The good news is that I’m 100k+ words into the book now and pretty much just need to write the finale. (I say that like it’s an incredibly easy thing, it’s still a tricky thing, but a thing that is very nearly done.) Once I get that finished, I’m pretty much going to take another pass at the book and smooth things over before handing it off to beta readers, making another pass with their notes and then hopefully getting the book to an editor before making two more editing passes.
I also made myself loose writing goal of finishing six short stories this year. I’d still like that to happen, but it’s not going to happen at the every-other-month pace I’d hoped for. Instead, I’ll probably work on those more in-between edits to Light Keeper #2.
Blogposts
Lastly, for at least the rest of the year, I’m going to shift making a blog post/sending a news letter from once every two weeks, to once a month. There will be some exceptions for updates like this one, but I think cutting my blogs in half will let me finish some of the writing a little bit more and also let’s me make these a little bit better.
Anyway, that’s most of what I’ve been up to for the past three months and what I’ve got coming up the next three months. Hopefully I see you along the way!
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Light Keeper Chronicle: The Unspoken Prophecy is available for physical purchase from Schuler Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon or wherever you read ebooks.
The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon or wherever you read ebooks. The audiobook is also out now on most major platforms.