Cat: Suzu
Human: j.a.m
Author: jamcminn
Jessica A. McMinn is an aspiring author based in NSW, Australia. She writes New Adult dark fantasy fiction, short stories of various genres, book reviews and shares the occasional insight into her writer’s life.
Since graduating from the University of Wollongong with Distinction in BCA (Creative Writing) and BA (Japanese), Jessica has spent five years in Japan teaching English, all while working on her first novel: The Ruptured Sky (Gardens of War & Wasteland #1). She is now in the final round of preliminary edits and preparing to roll out to beta readers for feedback mid-2018.
In her free time she enjoys watching trashy TV, crafting, gaming and annoying her furbaby.
[blog] welcome to caturday
I’m a cat lover from way back.
My family had always been dog people. Mum grew up with dogs; Grandma still had dogs right up until she passed. My parents had a dog before they had kids. My aunts had dogs. My cousins had dogs. Dogs dogs dogs dogs dogs.
All I ever wanted was a cat.
Well, actually a pony. But that’s another story.
[blog] q-one in review
Happy Easter Long Weekend!
Being the end of March, we are now officially one quarter of the way through the year of twenty-eighteen. How did that happen, right!? I wish I could jump on here and tell you all how fantastically productive I have been in achieving all the goals I set out at the end of 2017. The reality is, however, (and who is surprised?) while I have made progress I’ve still ultimately fallen short of all I intended to do. Winning!
Who feels good about themselves coming into April? Certainly not I but oh well. Progress is progress, no matter how small, right?
[review] the raven cycle
Never had I been so invested in a group of teenagers until I met Blue and her Raven Boys.
Ah, Maggie Stiefvater and The Raven Cycle.
Where do I begin without obscenely gushing all over the place? This series has raised the bar for YA fiction and given me a love for the genre which was previously only an occasional interest. Having annihilated all four books in the space of a month–a truly astounding feat for turtle-reader me–it’s safe to say The Raven Cycle shot straight to the top of my favourites and Stiefvater has well asserted herself as one of the premier authors of YA fiction.
[short story] aunty mim’s lost & found
Miriam Sykes had been called many things and not all of them were kind. A witch, a gypsy. Hermit. Lunatic. Satan. But Miriam Sykes was just a woman—a woman who was very good at finding things.
Miriam lived a good twenty minute walk from Sturtville station. Trains didn’t stop there anymore. Well, not trains for moving people anyhow. There weren’t many people left to move in bum-fuck nowhere South Australia. That’s what my brother called Sturtville: bum-fuck nowhere. He wasn’t exactly wrong. Sturtville consisted of opal miners, a high school of about fifty kids, a Woolies, and one sad little servo that sold over-priced fuel. That was our town. Village. Hole-in-the-ground. We didn’t have a lot in Sturtville (more than one doctor, for example) but there was one thing we had that no other place in Australia did. And that was Miriam Sykes.
[blog] what you need to know about gardens of war & wasteland: the ruptured sky
As the beta roll-out looms, it’s about time I had a sit-down with myself and addressed some of the important questions that you, the readers, have about my upcoming novel, Gardens of War & Wasteland: The Ruptured Sky.
Continue reading “[blog] what you need to know about gardens of war & wasteland: the ruptured sky”
[blog] the year that was & the year that will be
And so 2017 draws to a close. I for one can not be more relieved.
This year has been a tumultuous one indeed: I moved countries, got married, began a new day-job, bought my first car, and moved again (domestically this time); I said goodbye to my Grandmother, a second mother who raised me alongside my own; and lost two public figures (Chester Bennington and Kim Jonghyun), who have been a source of love, comfort and inspiration, to this terrible illness called depression, of which I also chronically suffer. It really has been all over the place–I have been all over the place. Personal rollercoaster aside, though, and my writing career(?) has been a pleasantly stable fixture. Let’s take a look.
Chester Bennington: A musician who understood me…
Kim Jonghyun: And one who comforted me.
Continue reading “[blog] the year that was & the year that will be”
