Mona West

Pacemaker A Word Count Planner for Writers and Students

I (Courtney) am running behind getting our final season 1 episode up. I'm hoping to get it out this weekend. In the meantime:

Wanna do a short writing (or editing or reading or crafting or whatever) challenge with us this month?

Details and join link here:

So much of American history is just impulsive and extremely stupid elites, who don't believe in consequences because they have never personally experienced them, doing highly consequential stuff because they're bored or believe it might make them richer. I guess a lot of our culture, too.

Our last interview of season one is here! Making @unfortunatelypod.bsky.social has been incredibly grounding and wonderful in a rollercoaster of a debut year.

I loved chatting with @jenniferhudak.bsky.social and @monawest.bsky.social about fallow periods, persistence, and resilience. 💚

Normalize putting cup sleeves on iced drinks.

Delighted that my story, “CoverLetter_Version,5” appeared as a reprint with two other fantastic flash pieces in @podcastle.org today! They did my story proud! 🖤

Thanks specially to Kaitlyn Zivanovich for bringing my story to life so beautifully.

I once had the displeasure of talking with a billionaire tech bro about healthcare and he *literally* could not comprehend a system not driven by profit. Like, literally. Like a fish trying to wrap its brain around the concept of infinity. Impossible.

The cover for Danai’s debut novel, VILE VILLAINS illustrated by Audrey Benjaminsen

It’s here: the cover for the UK edition of VILE LADY VILLAINS, coming out April 02 2026 by Penguin Michael Joseph🖤

I simply respect my brain too much for this.

Courtney's! Book! Is! Out!!!!!

I don't like how everything always eventually sucks.

If You Force the Zipper, It Won't Budge Courtney and Mona chat with debut author, Piper L. White, about the debut learning curve, how other types writing and art inform and interconnect with our fiction, and writing genre in a BFA program. ...

New episode day!!!

Unfortunately... If You Force the Zipper, it Won't Budge with @piperlwhite.bsky.social is out now!

We had such a blast chatting with Piper about the fact that everything is writing, the genre wars, and debut year!

#WritingCommunity #WritingPodcast

It's an Economy of Favors Courtney and Mona chat publishing, precarity, and privilege with debut author Lacey Dunham. Transcripts here! Find Lacey online at www.laceyndunham.com., on Bluesky and on Instagram. And check out T...

New episode!

Unfortunately... It's an Economy of Favors with Lacey Dunham is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

Thank you so much to @bookbent.bsky.social for joining us! #WritingCommunity #WritingPodcast

What are you waiting for? You've still got one day!

We had a delay, but episode 20 is finally here!

Listen to *Unfortunately... It's Like Army Crawling Through 30 Inches of Snow* with guest author, Rebecca Danzenbaker, wherever you get you podcasts. #WritingCommunity #WritingPodcast

What happens to all the corporate real estate when AI takes everyone's jobs?

Someone ask this man to define the scientific method.

Everyone salivating over genAI should be forced to ask it 5 questions about a topic they actually know a lot about.

You Need a Suitcase Full of Skills Mona and Courtney chat with author Lisa Tirreno about shifting from journalism to novel writing, celebrating rejections, gamifying the writing process, motivation, and working out what works for you a...

While we were out at WorldCon, our latest episode dropped! Check out Episode 19: Unfortunately... You Need a Suitcase Full of Skills with @lisatirrenoauthor.bsky.social!

Perhaps extract yourself from legal reality long enough to look at actual reality.

It's a new episode day!

We chatted with debut author Alysha Rameera about the feeling of not being enough to write your culture, how vital work-life balance can be in writing, and our strategies for managing publishing anxiety. #WritingPodcast #WritingCommunity

pnc.st/s/unfortunat...

Sorry if you haven't been able to reach me. I threw my personal phone, my work phone, my personal email address, my junk email address, my work email address, my other work email address, my teams chats, my skype account, and my discord into the sea.

I legit thought this was sarcasism.

Our Unfortunately... episode is now live! Really loved chatting with Courtney and Mona about our journey and the unique ups and downs of being co-writers.

My brother's wife's sister's dog's petsitter's tax guy says his second cousin died from the covid shot so now we're incinerating all the vaccines and canceling preventive care.

This Friday our latest episode with @mkhardywrites.com hits the feed.

We had a fantastic chat about co-writing, editing, navigating the industry with optimism, and building community! #WritingPodcast #WritingCommunity

Today's the last day to örder my book with frëe shipping!!
If you're ready for fall and want a suspenseful and engrossing novel, THE BELLES is probably exactly what you need. 😁

Love living in a timeline where pleasant community events need to post signs politely asking the government to please not kidnap people unless they've bothered to nominally abide by the constitution about it.

Yes.

This is my dream.

Listen to Jones!