"My name is Sara Landers, and I live in Baltimore with my sweetheart of sixteen years and our cat Kirby. I’m a writer who pays the bills with a full-time job at Trader Joe’s, which I love! My house is so full of plants and books that soon there won’t be enough room for the people. My two favorite places on earth are deep in the mountains of West Virginia and the streets of New York City. I contain multitudes 😊."

"In my full-time non-writing job I work weekends and have off on Wednesdays and Thursdays so I usually write on Wednesday mornings. When it’s going well, that stretches into Wednesday afternoons; and when it’s going really well I might keep going on Thursday too. I’m a morning person so mornings are always best for me, it’s when I’m the most bright eyed, energetic, and creative. I often make writing goals for myself that I fail because I’m an incredibly undisciplined person ha ha! But I am usually able to stick to my Wednesdays."

"One is Percival Everett. I’d love to be an Everett completionist, but I’ve only read three of his thirty books! Up next on my shelf by him is Walk Me to the Distance. Elizabeth Strout and George Saunders are also stacked on my nightstand."

"Being consistent! If I don’t put blocks of writing time in my calendar, just like I do with any other plans, I talk myself out of sitting down to write. I’m a pro at diversion."

"Getting to know my characters. I find myself thinking about them quite often. They become like real people to me and I’m driving to work wondering what so-and-so is doing right now. And the more I think about who they really are, what their quirks and habits and joys are, the better, and more excited I am, to write their stories."

"Master the craft first and go from there. I dreamed of being a writer since I was an eight-year-old writing silly Dr. Seuss-esque poems for my mom and short stories about characters that were really me. But I didn’t take writing seriously, I didn’t go to college, and I didn’t do anything to learn the craft, to understand good writing. I wrote awful stories and a terrible novel, which I self-published many many years ago and am horrified to admit to now! It wasn’t until I became an empty nester, went to college, and got my degree in English and Creative writing that I began to understand how and what made writing strong and effective. I would love to get an MFA to hone the craft even further but first I have to pay off this undergrad degree. I got my bachelor’s degree in my forties, maybe a master’s in my fifties?"

"I’m working on a novel. What I love to read is literary fiction, it’s my favorite and my passion and so that is what I’d like to write. But I think this book about three women in Baltimore whose paths cross when one of them does a social experiment gone slightly awry is more genre blending of commercial and literary fiction."

"I’m a serial hobbyist! I have so many hobbies where do I start? Here are the reasons I’m not writing on any given day: I’m reading, junk journaling, doing puzzles, playing video games, birding, sewing, playing board games, doing anything crafty in general, hiking, drawing or painting, and the list goes on and on."

"I once got into very minor a fender bender with Matthew Lillard from Scream. I am fluent in three languages: English, Spanish, and American sign language. I worked for many years as an ATM vault technician – I was a safe cracker."