Novelist, technical writer, and short-story writer

November 2025: I am officially a novelist!!! I have been working on four or five book projects for several years. I just signed a three-book deal with Sibylline Press for my cozy mystery series. Book 1: Cue the Murder will be out Fall 2026. Yea!!!

I am finishing up editing on my Christian Women’s Fiction novel, The Family You Choose. Recently wrote the last chapter, still working it through my friends in the HWH Writer’s group. Also have a retired RN reviewing it for the medical aspects surrounding one of the characters who is dying of cancer. I am starting to submit to contests and publishers.

My middle-grade historical novel set in rural Texas in 1965, the year the schools integrated, has been shelved until I can completely rewrite it. After spending five-years on it, an agent told me it was unpublishable because one of my four POV characters is black, and I am not. Very disheartening, but in the recent escalation of concerns about appropriation of cultures it is perhaps understandable.

Instructional Design:  I am retiring for the second time the end of 2025. Currently finishing up my last instructional designer responsibilities for Clarity Consultants on a project for ExxonMobil.

Looking for an exciting new project for 2026.

Want to focus on some new short stories to submit to contests, including the Houston Writer’s House contest for short fiction about Texas.

I’ll keep you posted.

My Review: One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Check out the review I wrote on Stacks:

https://clairehartpalumbo.substack.com/p/review-one-day-everyone-will-have

My Review: Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Check out the review I wrote on Stacks: https://clairehartpalumbo.substack.com/p/emily-henrys-great-big-beautiful