Happy New Year, Readers!

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday time during the end of 2025.

I have so much to share with you going into this year, so let’s get into it!

Newsletters

Regular email newsletters will resume on Tuesday, January 13th.

If you missed my normal newsletters every 2nd and 4th Tuesday per month, I promise you readers that they’re coming back soon!

And if you’re not subscribed to the newsletter: What are you waiting for? Sign up to keep up with more detailed writing updates, access to sales that I don’t always advertise on socials about my books, and access to a small library of freebies!

Upcoming Books

I’m publishing TWO books for the Spring 2026 season! 🎉

Both are fantasy, albeit for different age groups. Read below for more details!

Sadie Rowe And The Missing Necklace

I’m finally, FINALLY publishing my debut fantasy kidlit book Sadie Rowe And The Missing Necklace this year!

And yes, what you’re looking at is the official cover. 🙌

Thank you to Lora Elezovic who designed the illustrations AND the official book cover of Sadie Rowe! I also worked with Klara Z and Monika Markic, who designed the interior layout work/formatting for this book. I would not have been able to get this book into its final form without them, and I am ever so grateful for working with them to bring this book to life.

Reading my chlidhood favourites, Gwyneth Rees’ Fairy Dust series and Daisy Meadows’ Rainbow Fairy series, inspired me for writing this book. Parents, this is the perfect read for your kids for March Break this spring season!

Sadie Rowe And The Missing Necklace will be available in both ebook and paperback format on Amazon. However, I hope to publish the book wide/on other retailers in the future.

“Sadie Rowe And The Missing Necklace” will be published on February 23rd, 2026.

Found

My second short YA story collection, Found, will be published in May 2026!

Yes, what you’re looking at is ALSO the official cover of the book, designed by Claris Lam (that’s me)! 😁

Found is a 2nd person narrative short story collection inspired by multiple fairytales and the games it gets so lonely here andthe end of an obsession by ebi-hime. This book is also in the fantasy genre, but it is written for an young adult (YA) audience.

Found will be available on Amazon in paperback and ebook, and in ebook form on all other retailers.

Found will be published on May 18th, 2026.

Other Writing Plans for 2026

Last year, I was too scattered with my writing plans, focus-wise. How? Well…

I kept drafting new books and dropping them almost as soon as the first drafts were done. My constantly changing WIPs page is evidence of that. 😅

Also, I often kept focusing on other writing-related projects: submitting to lit mags and/or contests, getting interviews about my books, and trying to focus more on marketing.

All of these are great efforts for exposure. However, I didn’t approach ANY of this with a clear goal in mind. And because of that, progress on writing my books (let alone selling the ones that were published in 2025) suffered a lot. 😓

Sure, I got plenty of first and second drafts written last year. But what about the final drafts to publish later?

I also want to add that being an author is not my full-time job. When I’m not writing, I’m working in digital marketing and as a church organist. However, I do want to continue the business of being an indie author and poet as well as I possibly can without losing my well-being and burning out like I did in the Summer 2023. That period of time may have resulted in writing my poetry chapbook Refilling The Well, sure, but I’d really like to not end up going down that road again.

I put way too much on my plate last year, and something has to change.

That something is stopping submitting to lit mags and contests for a while.

Why? Well…

1. I was absolutely inconsistent with submitting poetry and short stories to lit mags and contests every month, in 2025.

Some months I would send works to 10-12 submission calls. Other months, I submitted to 0 calls.

2. Submitting works to literary magazines is making less sense for me to do than just writing my own books and publishing them.

I submitted works to 97 literary magazines and/or contests last year. Out of those 97 submissions, this resulted in 4 publications.

To give that some more perspective, only 4.12% of my lit mag/contest submissions were published last year. And not all of them were paid publications, either.

Meanwhile, I can write my own books, and – thanks to my ability to self-publish them, have a 100% chance of publication.

Granted, I understand that I’m lucky to even have a few lit mag/contest publications in 2025. Many newer, emerging authors have even less of a chance of publication than I do. Also, writing for literary magazines and contests and getting published/winning said contests is a highly competitive field within the writing industry. But for me, this is no longer being a fulfilling use of my time as an indie author and poet right now.

For these two reasons, I have no plans to submit poems and short stories to any lit mags and/or contests for at least the first few months of 2026. This way, I can devote more time to writing and editing my books. It might culminate in me publishing books faster, or maybe not. Either way, it’ll give me a bit more peace of mind to just focus on my longer-form works.

Thank you for all your support!

I hope you look forward to reading what stories and poetry I have to share with you this year.

Want to see more from me? Check out all of my links!