Awash in Talent: Get to Know Emily, Sister of a Telekinetic Healer

Awash in Talent is a YA/NA contemporary paranormal novel in three novellas. You can help it be published by clicking the "Nominate" button at this link. Easy, free, and fun! Learn even more here.

Each novella in Awash in Talent will have its own cover. Hope & Benevolent, the first, foundational novella, called for a cover that reflects the preoccupation of the narrator, Emily, with early hominids, such as Australopithecus ramidus, one of the oldest fossilized primates who is considered to have a relationship to modern humans. It also illustrates Emily's tendency to keep reaching for what she wants, even when it's obvious to everyone else that it isn't going to work out.

I have a real-life friend whose name is Emily, and after she read "Unpredictable Factors in Human Obedience" in Unpredictable Worlds, she asked me, "Do you hate me?"

Simply because the narrator of that story is crazy or evil and has the same name she does? Not a chance.

When it came time to name the crazy and/or nefarious narrator of Hope & Benevolent, I made use of the name Emily again, for reasons lost to time (but probably related to author shorthand in character development!). I named her younger sister Beth, so in the end the sisters are named after the owner of Clifford, the Big Red Dog.

Emily's simple desire to be recognized for her own brilliance over her ridiculously Talented sister sends her across the country to Providence, Rhode Island, where she finds the love of her life. To be with him, and to spare herself a summer at home with her sister, Emily does a field study in Ethiopia. But even that's not far enough away to escape her sister. And that's when things really get complicated. You can read an excerpt that includes the astonishing incident in Ethiopia at the Kindle Scout campaign page.

Emily doesn't have the same limits to her ambition or her behavior we mere mortals do. Although at first she seems sassy and fun, in reality you probably wouldn't want her as your friend. She will obliterate anything that gets in her way, and she's not above committing what others would consider crimes. Imagining what Emily would do next, I thought about her goals and took possible actions far past their logical conclusions.

Emily is great fun to write. Far from hating my friend with the same name, I'm honoring her. Her name is now immortalized in a character who's so delightful to write, I can't imagine she'll be forgotten by readers any time soon.

At least that's my dearest authorial hope.

You'll be able to read Emily's incredible adventures in Hope & Benevolent and the third novella, Friendship Street, if enough readers nominate Awash in Talent for publication. Wish it luck!