Searching for Spotlights
I have exciting news. I am officially a published author, one year ahead of schedule!
Slight caveat...it's for a short story with a foreign press. But, this is still amaze-balls. Why?
1) You can read Searching for Spotlights, for FREE along with a host of other touching and city inspired stories at Wells Street Journal.
2) This is your first chance to read my young adult (YA) fiction! I want to know what you think. Seriously. What do you like/not like? Speak now before the real deal finishes revisions and edits.
3) My fictional characters get to see the light of day...or spotlights of night, as is the case for Malin.
And who is Malin, you might ask?
Malin Porter is the first classmate my protagonist, Thea, encounters in my debut novel, Fade to White. She is a talented and driven young woman who is on the cusp of making it in the movie industry. In Searching for Spotlights, Malin travels to Toronto with her best friend Eve, to attend her first movie premier. A premier which features her, in her first ever speaking role. This is the opportunity to build connections and skyrocket her career. The outcome is critical and sets up Malin's tragic and longstanding impact on the entire cast of Fade to White.
Got you curious?? Good!
Here's a sneak peek:
The sun leaps along the rooftops of low-rise apartment buildings, flashing the streets below with the glow of a perfect, late-summer night. Goosebumps travel along my arms. I can’t believe this is happening. I glance down at our e-tickets for the fiftieth time since we found our seats on the train. Half an hour before the meet and greet starts and only a thirteen-minute walk to the theatre. Lots of time.
Graffitied factory walls begin to intermix with streetcar-wired lanes. I text Eve with a gritted teeth cat emoji. “Almost there. Look up.”
She glances out the window from her seat across from me, copies my stressed-out kitty face, while eyeing the business-suit hottie sitting next to me. A GIF pops up of a flash mob dancing down a city street. “Let’s do this.” She shoots her hands up and down almost in sync with the song on my playlist. We keel over in silent laughter. Business boy doesn’t flinch from his newsfeed.
I turn up the volume on my Night Owl playlist and get sucked back into the scrolling view. Ridgefield can’t even hold a matchstick to Toronto. A ding breaks through Bastille’s newest anthem. “Is your mom meeting us there?”
I text back. “Nope. The girls can go wild.”
The train curves south and light flashes between the influx of glassed condominiums shooting high above us. Reflections of the sun hit countless windows – thousands of mini homes stacked to support the penthouse. I squint up to the top. One day Malin. That will be you. I lower my gaze back to the people and cars flashing past. Every one of them with purpose and direction.
We curve again and the train rattles deeper into a jungle of metal-bridged walkways and towering office buildings. The sun is engulfed by the core of the city. The recorded announcer’s voice chimes in over the low hum of the Go Train. “Union Station, last stop, Union Station.”
To read the whole story head over to Wells Street Journal's Issue 11. If you are now hooked and ready to travel back to Ridgefield, sign up for my newsletter. I'll send out a copy of Searching for Spotlights and a new short story featuring Thea's backstory in the near future.
And please, let me know what you think! I've got teflon-top coating ... most of the time ... and want to improve my message and craft.
Oh, and check out Instagram to help me choose a final cover for Searching for Spotlights.
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