The Buzz
Catch up on all the latest News and Happenings at Bees’ Knees Creatives!
The Hawk, the Lizard, and the Heron I Almost Missed
These four photos came out of three completely different outings: a park visit that turned into a hawk-rescue misunderstanding, a hike at Pinnacle Peak, and an afternoon at the pond that started with one bird and ended with two. None of them were the shot I actually planned on getting.
The Idea, the Place, and the Title (In That Order)
The story didn't start with Phoenix, or even with rain. It started with an idea I woke up with one morning: a person finding photos of themselves, ones they have no memory of taking, at places they’ve never actually been. I searched around to see if anyone else had already written something built on that premise and came up empty, which was enough to convince me it was a subject worth chasing. The title, A Rainy Day, didn't arrive until I was about halfway through writing it, once I understood who Roz actually was: someone who saves things back, who's been waiting on a change she's not sure is even coming.
What I've Been Working On This Month
This month split pretty evenly between finishing something old and starting something new, which is about as normal as my desk ever gets.
A Ghost Like Me went back to my editor, Ryan, after I'd let it sit untouched for about six months. That distance turned out to be the best editing tool I didn't know I had. I'd read a paragraph and think, wow, I wrote that 🥰, and two paragraphs later, wow, I wrote THAT? 🤢🤮. The big structural task was shifting the entire manuscript's tense, which forced me to read every single sentence instead of skimming past the ones I already knew by heart. In the process I found a pet word I'd used more than seventy times and managed to whittle it down to nineteen.
Three Jobs, Three Headspaces.
No single day at BKC looks the same. Some mornings I'm behind a camera by six am, or earlier depending on the season, editing images by ten, and drafting a blog post by two. Other days I sit down with a novel chapter at eight in the morning and I'm still there at six that night, having barely moved from the chair.
When One Cover Has to Become Five
Non-designers often think designing a book cover means making one image. In practice, it means making one image that has to work as a 24-by-36-inch poster, a postage-stamp-sized eBook thumbnail, a perfectly square audiobook icon, and a wraparound paperback jacket with spine width calculated down to the page count. All without mangling the image or creating six different books.
What a Dragonfly Taught Me About Photography
Everyone assumes a dragonfly shot comes down to reflexes. Fast hands, fast shutter, right place at the right time. I believed that too, for about two weeks.
Those two weeks were humbling. I'd spot one perched on a reed, wings catching the light just right, and I'd move in for the shot, only to watch it lift off the instant I got close enough to focus. I'd find it twenty feet away, try, and lose it again. I did this for the better part of an afternoon at a pond, sweating, half-crouched, convinced the problem was my speed. I just needed to move faster, get closer quicker, beat the dragonfly to the punch.
I never caught the dragonfly. Not once.
From Rough Draft to Finished Story: My Process
Every story begins the same way: with a blank page.
Getting the story out of your head and onto the page is often the hardest part. It took me a long time to accept that I didn’t need every sentence to be perfect before moving on. In fact, trying to make every paragraph flawless usually meant I wasn’t making any progress at all.
Writers generally fall into two camps: plotters and pantsers.
A New Title Coming
We are very excited to announce a new partnership with Sharon Ahern, co-author/creator of the bestselling sci-fi/action-adventure series THE SURVIVALIST. Sharon and Sean previously worked together on CAMP ZERO (2016) which was set in the same universe. (Incidentally, long-suffering fans, the second CAMP ZERO adventure is also coming soon).
I love the smell of fresh ink in the morning!
The latest issue of Backwoods Survival Guide is heading to newsstands coast to coast May 29th 2026 — and it's got my byline in it!