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Month: March 2016

We, The Watched acclaimed by Kirkus Reviews

I felt especially honored today to receive a glowing review of my debut novel, We, The Watched, from Kirkus Reviews, a highly respected institution in the book publishing world.

Check out this amazing excerpt:

Fueled by a brilliantly nebulous backdrop, this briskly paced, action-packed novel is undeniably a page-turner of the highest order…

A deeply allegorical and powerfully thought-provoking dystopian must-read.

KIRKUS REVIEWS

We, The Watched coverHead over to Kirkus to read the full review! Then, if you haven’t read it yet, check out this page for a list of stores to buy We, The Watched in digital or paperback. You can also get the eBook for FREE by joining my mailing list!

Told from the unique first-person perspective of an amnesiac, acclaimed novel We, The Watched places the reader in the shoes of Seven as he struggles to go unnoticed in a surveillance society and discover his true identity. Seven enters a dystopia where the government conducts mass surveillance and keeps a Watched list of its own citizens. The Church has become as powerful as the State, and people who resist are called Heretics and face execution.

I want to address the reviewer’s one criticism about sexism on the part of the protagonist. The reviewer makes a fair point here, and it’s something that I consciously improved upon in the sequel, Divided We Fall, and my writing since then. I definitely take these kinds of concerns seriously, and I’m glad this criticism did not stop the reviewer from recommending We, The Watched as a must-read.

Hope you enjoy We, The Watched — I can’t wait to read YOUR review!

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A journey through India with Project Fi (and other recent clips)

I’ve been blogging a lot about my creative writing lately, so I thought it was time to highlight a few recent news and feature articles I’ve had published since moving to Philadelphia. I’ve been contributing to Technical.ly Philly, Generocity.org, ASTM Standardization News, among other freelance projects.


Full bars but 2G speeds in an auto-rickshaw in Bangalore.
Full bars but 2G speeds in an auto-rickshaw in Bangalore.

Here’s a neat story I wrote for Technical.ly about staying connected during a recent trip to India. I was looking for a way to use my cellphone while abroad — without breaking the bank — so I signed up for the new Google wireless service, Project Fi.

While I had to contend with India’s 2G networks, the service worked well and saved me a lot of cash. The article also includes my impressions after testing Project Fi back home in Philadelphia.


Credit: ASTM

The science of weights and measurements might sound like a dry topic at first, but I actually learned quite a lot speaking with Canada Chief Metrologist Alan Steele for this article in ASTM Standardization News.

For example, did you know that the kilogram is about to be redefined so that it will no longer be based on a small cylinder of platinum iridium metal? Did you even know it was based on a small cylinder of platinum iridium metal? These and other exciting facts inside!


WordCamp 2015 in Philly
WordCamp 2015 in Philly

Well, this is a WordPress blog, so I should probably include this one. In December, I attended the first national WordCamp US conference at the Philadelphia Convention Center. Not only did I enjoy the sessions, but I got to interview the organizers for this article in Technical.ly.

The conference was such a hit that City Council declared December 5 as WordPress Day!


Well, that was fun, but it’s just a sampling. For more, check out a selection of recent journalism clips on Evernote!

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