- What books or short stories have you published?
- See my Publications/Awards page.
- Who is your agent?
- Nobody yet, still on the market. Interested? Check out the agent's guide to my current manuscript.
- Who designed your website logo?
- My lovely second cousin Alysia Mentula designed my logo. You can check out her stuff and contact her here.
- Have you won any awards or contests?
- Yes, see my Publications/Awards page.
- What writing experience do you have?
- I took classes on writing in undergrad and earlier. Not to mention classes at various writing conferences, such as the Hampton Roads Writers Conference (2017, 2019, 2020), Seattle Writing Workshop (2020), Futurescapes (2021 and 2022), and the PNWA Conference (2023, 2024).
- Are you part of any writing groups?
- Yes! I'm part of several critique groups. Also, I was a member of Hampton Roads Writers (2017-2020) and am now part of the Pacific Northwest Writer's Association (PNWA) (2020- current). I highly recommend joining writing groups and organizations to improve your craft!
- Do you use AI to write?
- I DO NOT use AI for inspiration, ideas, drafting, writing, querying, blurbs, reviews, blog posts, synopses, etc. If I have control over future covers, I will not choose AI cover art. I use a grammar checker for things like passive voice, punctuation, and sentence length, and I've been told some consider this is "AI assistance," so I'm including that here as full disclosure.
- Your last name is Japanese, are you Japanese?
- Nope! Ota is my married name, and I decided to use my married name for writing because it's much easier to spell and pronounce than my maiden name.
- Who made the art for the podcast?
- The artist for our portrait was Tayyab. We found them on Fivrr where their username is saalif_art. They were great to work with. We loved supporting a real artist and not AI!
- The artist for our portrait was Tayyab. We found them on Fivrr where their username is saalif_art. They were great to work with. We loved supporting a real artist and not AI!