A.M. Leibowitz's Blog: Amy's Blog

Oaky, I haven’t exactly been on track with these. I didn’t post for a couple of weeks because I knew I didn’t really have time to read everyone else’s. This is my last “free” weekend before school starts. We’ll see what happens after that. Mercifully, I’m a secondary teacher, so my prep time for classes isn’t as taxing as for elementary kids. I spent this past week setting up my room and making it shine for when the students arrive. I wonder how many parents will complain after open house th...

Another week, another snippet. Today is my youngest child’s 18th birthday. It’s definitely a little odd to have a household full of adults, but I’m incredibly proud of the person they’ve become.

I meant to do a snippet last weekend, but it’s been really busy here. We currently have a friend of my oldest child’s and their partner staying here because we’re helping extract the two of them from a difficult situation. I’m glad to be at a stage of life where we can do this more easily.

On t...

It’s been a very long time since I shared one of these. Two years ago, I returned to school to finish the teaching degree I’d planned to get before having children. Now that I’ve graduated, I have some spare time while doing the whole job search thing.

I have a couple of other WIPs, but I’m not feeling inspired. They were ones I’d worked on before school and my day job took up all my energy. I’ll probably finish them eventually, but for now, I’m working on something else.

This is a sto...

I don’t think I would have considered talking about this, probably ever, if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was doing some training courses for my day job (more on that another time). One of my recerts was workplace sexual harassment. And oooh, boy, did that open a can of worms.

I see a lot of people ask why folks don’t report an incident when it happens, and answers vary. But one thing I don’t see discussed all that often is how it might be difficult to know if harassment has happened.

I suppose that title accurately describes both the plot of Tree of Life and the epic saga (ha!) of how the book came to be.

It’s taken six years (and one month, but who’s counting?) to see this published. Five of those were spent in writing it; the last was revising, editing, proofreading, and creating the cover. It all started back in 2016 with the publication of An Act of Devotion.

That book in itself has its own back story. Around the time my first novel, Lower Education, was publis...

Here’s the playlist for Connor and Luke’s epic road trip. I’ve linked it on Amazon if you have an account and want to listen. Otherwise, you can search for any or all of the songs on your favorite music website.

When I was writing this novel, I wanted some music both for the story and for inspiration. I asked friends and family on social media and offline to supply me with some songs. I anticipated I might get several repeats, especially some of the more familiar songs. However, what happened...

Happy Sunday! It’s just 2 days until Tree of Life is live. Here’s another snippet of the book, introducing a character who becomes important to the story.

I’ve been to the store Luke is referring to here. It’s right off the Peach Street exit in Erie, PA. One half is a Jelly Belly store, and the other is guns, ammo, and fireworks. At least, it was the last time we travelled that way a couple of years ago.

Note: You can certainly purchase through one of the vendors, but m...

Tree of Life releases in less than 10 days! Today, I’m sharing an excerpt; keep an eye out on my Facebook page for more news and info.

Note: You can certainly purchase through one of the vendors, but my preference is that you buy from the publisher. This is a small press, and going through them supports the business directly rather than a large corporation.

I have been sitting on this for what feels like forever because my day job didn’t leave me much time to deal with cover images and all the necessary behind-the-scenes stuff. But here it is, the official announcement:

Luke works a job he hates and shares a dirty, small apartment with his roommate, barely making ends meet and envying the successes of his friends. When they all return for a wedding, Luke comes face ...

It’s been almost a year since I last blogged. A lot has happened, but these days, I don’t feel much like personal or recreational writing—not even on a blog. That said, sometimes A Thing makes me so infuriated that I can’t bottle it in and need to get it out somehow.

This was posted in one of my writing groups, and I think it’s probably the last straw for my interest in belonging there.

The text reads:

Side Note To Fan Fic Authors

Here’s the thing.

I read a lot of scripts. A lot. From professio...