Happy Friday, my friends!

I hope your January has been a good one and has been an exciting start to a new year!

I confess that this month has been most unexpected. 

Last year when praying about my word for 2021, I felt it was the word “surprise.” It makes me laugh a little bit because I don’t think that’s a word that is chosen often, but despite that, I felt it was fitting.

In almost every aspect of my life except my creative one, I am very much a planner. While I can occasionally be spontaneous, I like to prepare in advance and have a loose outline of what’s happening next (or supposed to happen next).

When surprises come in, I…handle them extremely poorly. *hides*

So much so, that I cried out to God for help in this area because the last time I was hit with a huge surprise, I was an emotional basket case. (I really really really wish I could say I was joking here. *nervous laughter*)

I prayed that I could learn to “just roll with it” so to speak and that I would trust God deeper than my first reaction to panic.

Well, as I’ve heard some people say, God has a interesting sense of humor. *winks*

In December I shared a video of a few plans/ideas I had for this upcoming year, but they were not related to writing. 

In fact, I didn’t actually know what things would look like on the writing front except that I wanted to co-publish my manga with Noelle Nichols.

One thing I didn’t expect was to be co-organizing an anime-inspired devotional with my dear friend Moriah Jane!

She messaged me one morning saying how cool if would be if there was a devotional geared towards those who love anime and manga and made references from those said anime and manga. 

The week prior, someone on Instagram had mentioned how cool it would be to have something similar as well (just in reference to movies).

Within the course of a few days we asked people if they were interested, planned all the details over the weekend, and then this past Tuesday made an official announcement that we are indeed moving forward with an anime-inspired devotional called Finding God in Anime: A Devotional for Otakus.

It has been amazing! Moriah and I have been very much on the same page (and she has been incredibly patient with me changing our plans of launching stuff on this date and then asking if we can do it sooner LOL) and we are both over the moon excited for this!

If you’re interested reading the submission guidelines and/or receiving an email notification of submissions being live, definitely please check out the webpage we created!

Learn More About Submissions

Some more exciting news is Noelle is releasing her new book, Phantom’s Lament, at the end of this month and I’m a special guest at her livestream!

She’s giving away paperbacks of her first book, Shadow’s Hand, playing games, and were both dressing up in some of our favorite characters!

Though I better get started on mine if I want to be ready! LOL!

Any guesses of who I might be cosplaying as?

I'll give a few hints:

• He's from an anime.
• The setting in the said anime is during the Meji Revolution.
• The Japanese symbol for bad is written on the back of his "shirt."

Think you know who it is? Reply to this email and let me know your guess!

RSVP to Phantom's Lament Livestream

Speaking of parties, I’ll also be a co-host at Laura L. Zimmerman’s upcoming virtual book launch party!

I have deeply enjoyed hearing more about her book Lament and just received my pre-order goodies yesterday! (Guys, I MUST make some faerie cakes now!)

If you enjoy YA, fae, and amazing characters definitely check out her book and come join me and a few different authors! 

Did I mention there will also be a lot of epic giveaways too? *winks*

RSVP to Lament Book Launch Party

Lastly, I’m also super excited to share that my new video series about making a manga is going amazing! 

I’ve been deeply blessed by everyone’s love and support and thrilled that starting February 2nd, every Tuesday for the month of February, I’ll be interviewing a variety of mangaka sharing about different stages of the manga process. Eeeeepp!

If you’re interested seeing how I wrote my manga Gathering Faith, here’s the latest video I shared!

(Pssst. There may or may not be an exclusive look at the first official finished page. *winks*)

Watch on YouTube

I hope you all have a blessed weekend and thank you all SO much for your encouraging emails from my previous newsletter! (And your patience too! My newsletter is linked to a new email address and have not set up how to get notifications of when I receive new emails. *hides*)

Many blessings,

Laura