Meet AKA teammate: Tasha Cotter

Here’s another one of my awesome AKA Literary teammates. Hope you check her out.

Name: Tasha Cotter

Lives in:  Glasgow, KY

Family: married to Daniel Cotter

Writes: YA, contemporary women’s fiction and poetry

Day job: Professor and educator

Titles of books you've written/sold:
Women’s Fiction: I wrote a contemporary women’s fiction series. The three books in this series include: THE PROBLEM WITH MR. RIGHT, EVERYTHING YOU WANT, and DAPPLED THINGS. I also co-wrote a book titled US IN PIECES, with Chris Green.

YA: THE SERIOUSLY MESSED UP (BUT TRUE!) STORY OF A WITCH (The first book in a three-part series)

Website: http://www.tashacotter.com/

Favorite book: This changes by the week, but there are a some clear favorites: Nick Hornby, Julianna Baggott, Steve Almond, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Suzanne Collins.

Favorite book character: Jo March of LITTLE WOMEN or Katniss Everdeen of THE HUNGER GAMES trilogy.

Book you've learned the most from: Craft-wise I’d say BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott, WILL WRITE FOR SHOES Cathy Yardley, and HOW FICTION WORKS by James Wood.

If you could have dinner with any author, who would it be and what would you ask him/her? I think it would be Aimee Bender, author of THE PARTICULAR SADNESS OF LEMON CAKE and WILLFUL CREATURES. I love where her books take me — literally and figuratively. I’d pick her brain about her use of surrealism in her works and find out what’s on the horizon for her.

What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received: I think it was from Julianna Baggott. Her advice was obvious, but something I so often lose track of when I’m trying to schedule time to write: in order to be a writer, you have to sit your ass in a chair in write. Simple, but surprisingly easy to lose sight of. Too often when I’m at my desk I find myself getting up to go do anything else but write and I have to remind myself to get back to the book, get back in that chair…

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