ok, no, AC does not stand for ACCUWEATHER.  but last time i tried googling myself, the first thing that comes up when i type "ac" is "accuweather."  go figure. 

i’ve been madly in love with writing since I was in kindergarten.  not kidding–some of my earliest memories revolve around books and writing, like reading in front of the class, reading with my mother, and writing a story in first grade that was so funny (it dealt with a gorilla finding someone naked in the shower, and was, sadly, the culmination of my humor writing skills) it got me kicked out of class.  which was also the first and last time for that.

no that’s a lie. in third grade i got detention for ripping bark off a tree.

i know, i’m a rebel.

from there, it was a long road.  i wrote all through middle school and starting submitting novels (I hope I still have those very kind, gentle rejection letters somewhere) when I was thirteen.  ACK you have no idea how bad those novels looked.  All through high school I was writing in a notebook instead of taking class notes (explaining the less than perfect GPA).  It was always novels for me–the first time I seriously wrote short stories was at the end of my college career, to get into my graduate program, and it felt awkward and weird.

St Andrews, Scotland, where I went to college

but i got in to grad school, wrote like a fiend, and when i graduated i spent three miserable years as a freelance writer while working on several different novels.  I wrote them, prepped them, submitted them, and kept on working, because as far as I can tell, the actual writing is the only thing that i can control, and it’s the part that really makes me happy.

Signing my contract with my special pen!

oh, and i have two dogs.  because every writer should have dogs. 

anything else you need to know?  just ask.  you can contact me at acgaughen@gmail.com