1. Please tell our readers a bit about yourself in 50 words or less.

Hi, I’m Meredith! I’m a marketing copywriter by day, an aspiring fiction writer by even earlier in the day, a Chicago townie by early evening, and fully asleep by night.

Do you write full-time or part-time?

I write full-time as a Group Copy Supervisor (i.e., a Super-Extra-Senior Copywriter) at a marketing agency and have been a full-time UX writer in the past. I write fiction in whatever slivers of time I can find outside of that.

What brought you to FF & P?

I joined RWA recently and discovered there’s no chapter in my area, so I started looking for virtual groups focused on the SFF subgenre – FF&P sounds like a great fit!

What do you hope to get out of FF & P?

I have been part of a few writing groups & platforms in the past, but none are really active anymore, and most participants were hobbyists. With RWA and FF&P, I’m hoping to find a forum of writers who know and love the genre, and who are serious about writing and publishing their work.

What genres do you write?

I wrote a funky-sorta urban fantasy novel (non-romance) a few years back that I queried to agents with no offers of representation. Now, I’m writing an MM fantasy romance built around the arranged marriage trope, with multi-kingdom geopolitical intrigue and a bit of a sci-fi twist.

Are you traditional, hybrid, or indie published? Why did you go this route?
If you’re not published, which route do you plan on taking?

I’ll answer 6 and 7 together! I am not published, but plan to query once my manuscript is ready (most likely next summer/fall). My hope is to be traditionally published, but will consider self-publishing if I can’t find representation—this genre has a far more dedicated indie fanbase than others I’ve seen, which is awesome.

Do you have any odd/strange/fascinating rejection stories to share?

Nothing especially odd! But I have had that thing happen that may sound familiar to other folks: you participate in a pitch conference, wherein an agent expresses a great deal of excitement about your book and implores you to send pages, only to ignore you for six months and then send you a form rejection. Again, not especially odd or strange—agents are busy—but you do find yourself wishing the axe would fall faster so you could move on!

What is your writing routine like?

When I’m drafting, I tend to write a lot in the mornings before work, as well as weekends. Right now, I’m in a heavy revisions stage and am mostly writing on weekends, when I can spend longer stretches of time at once. I usually get started as soon as I wake up and go until early afternoon. I also just bought a house and FINALLY have my own office (instead of a desk in the dining room), which means I finally have the wall space for the giant whiteboard of my dreams. It’s the perfect place to brainstorm, map out scenes, draw out timelines that are starting to get confusing, etc.

Name three of your favorite sci-fi or fantasy authors.

I don’t know that I have favorite authors, because I find I might LOVE one book or series by the same person, while I’m not as moved by others. But I can name three of my most recent obsessions!

• I devoured the Captive Prince series by C. S. Pacat earlier this year! It is absolutely airtight, and no other “enemies to lovers” storyline comes close.
• Last summer I dove headfirst into the cult of Hyperion by Dan Simmons—IYKYK. It’s one of those books that you read, and realize, “Ohhh, this is where all my other favorite stories stole their ideas from!”
• Which leads me to … the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey. It’s got threads from Hyperion, Firefly, Stargate, cyberpunk, and a good bit of classic sci-fi body horror, with a far-flung story world

If you could meet anyone, imaginary or real, in sci-fi or fantasy, who would it be and why?

As a longtime Star Trek fan, it’d have to be someone from that story world! I think younger-me would have said someone like Jean-Luc Picard or Deanna Troi. Now that I’m older, I’d probably pick someone more like Mirror-Universe Sisko…

You’re stranded on a desert island, and you can only have one book. Which book do you bring with you and why?

Oh gosh. Can I get all the Hyperion books in a single volume? Because I think that’s the only way I could actually finish the Endymion portion of the 4-book series.

Tell us about your latest release(s) and what’s coming next for you.

As an aspiring debut author, I’ve got no current releases yet!

How can readers find you online?

No author presence online at this time.