First review for Girl on the Line and it's a STAR!

Publishing is excruciatingly slow for an impatient human such as myself. Takes forever to write, takes forever to revise, takes forever to submit, takes forever to publish; thus, I have been quietly burning with dread and anxiety as I await the first reviews of my upcoming book GIRL ON THE LINE out in January 2021. This week, I was ecstatic to get the email letting me know the first review is in, and it’s a starred review from Kirkus! Here’s a lil snippet:

“An achingly authentic depiction of cycling through depression and healing ... Gardner’s depiction of mental illness, both through Journey’s own continual suicidal ideation and her therapists’ and doctors’ explanations of the difference between ideation and attempt, is deft and thoughtful. Trigger warnings are absolutely necessary, but the masterful handling gives the book bibliotherapeutic potential for readers struggling with the same issues or those who want to better understand the Journeys in their lives.”

— Kirkus Review

The word “bibliotherapeutic” in particular here means so much, as my greatest hope is that this book can help teens who, like me, live with mental illness. I’m so grateful for this thoughtful review. Read the full review here.

New book announcement!

Thrilled (and a little bit terrified, not gonna lie) to announce my new book coming out next year!! It’s called Girl on the Line, it’s the most near and dear thing I’ve ever written, and I can’t wait to share it with the world.

I've got a "new" short story up at Cutbank Literary Magazine

It’s been years since I published my last short story, but here I am again, with another story about mermaids. It is not my first published story about mermaids, and it probably won’t be my last. I have a mermaid tattoo on my leg. I even wrote a song about mermaids and wore a mermaid tail for the video. It has the same name as this short story, “Mermaiding.” Am I repeating myself? The point is, MERMAIDS.

Some backstory on my story: I wrote this a very, very long time ago—probably close to a decade ago, which in internet years, is a lifetime. It was accepted for an anthology I was overjoyed to be a part of, and then my joy deflated over the years as the anthology clearly was never going to happen. I submitted it again all these years later, my little orphan story leftover from my short story writing days, and it found a home at Cutbank Literary Magazine. Cutbank also published a story of mine years ago in a print issue called “The Daughter Resurrected” about a daughter who rose from the dead.

Happy reading!