Gratitude to Writer’s Digest for giving me the chance to talk about… surprises in the publication process working with the writer Rubén Degollado to create my Chicano tattoo artist character, Rick what it’s like trying to write a novel in your spare time as a working mom (hint: challenging) and why this book is my …
Happy Pride Month, loves, to the out, loud & proud– and to the quietly queer, the bi & shy, and those who have never really liked labels or big public announcements, but know who they are (and love who they are), and just go on walking the world with their own saucy rainbow glow. …
While researching my novel Jobs for Girls with Artistic Flair, set in a 1980s tattoo shop, I was lucky enough to interview a handful of trailblazing women who started tattooing in the 1970s, ’80s, and early ’90s—women with fascinating stories of what it was like to apprentice in the era before YouTube tutorials, bottled ink in 50 different …
This is the first in a series of conversations with wonderful everyday humans talking about how they kept going. Perseverance is a running theme in my novel, Jobs for Girls with Artistic Flair—the story of a young woman who aspires to become a tattoo artist in a 1980s, blue-collar town, when the field was overwhelmingly male—but …
This is an interview series with wonderful everyday humans talking about how they kept going. Why? This topic holds lifelong interest and meaning for me. I was first hospitalized for depression at fourteen, and again at sixteen. Therapy was transformative, and medication worked sometimes (and sometimes not); but when all was said and done, I …
Hello, traveler! If you’re reading this, perhaps you found one of these. ➡️ My name is June and I’m a writer from Long Island. My first novel, Jobs for Girls with Artistic Flair, will be in bookstores on June 21. (Though you can pre-order it now, if you like setting yourself up for fun surprises …
When I was 19 years old, I started writing a novel about a tattoo artist named Gina Mulley. Over many years and 15+ drafts, almost everything about the book has changed. But its soul is intact, and Gina Mulley the tattoo artist is still here, and I’m here too, with this good news: My novel, Jobs …
I was sitting in the back row of ninth-grade math class and passing notes with my friend Rob, who liked Pearl Jam as much as I did. Rob and I were not exactly troublemakers but we were also definitely not Cool Kids and school was just so stupid and we were sort of mischievous. So …
“If I’m going to tell you the story of how I lost two people who were closer than blood to me, I have to begin here in Dennett, Texas, during the summer between the sophomore and junior years of my life. This story begins as it ends, with me, Cirilo Izquierdo, waiting for what all …