Here is where I’ll be this summer!!

APRIL 11th!

Join us at the Texas Two–Step Writer’s Conference!

An all-day, immersive workshop led by Amanda Arista, designed to help writers gain clarity, confidence, and momentum in their stories.

The workshop will guide you through:
• The WRITE Stuff: Tools for Prewriting Through Editing that works
• Why These Monkeys: Strengthening Heroines & Villains
• Down & Dirty Character Development that clicks

Whether you’re just starting out or ready to strengthen your craft, this is the one conference of the year you definitely don’t want to miss! Enjoy the welcoming space to learn, connect, and grow.

April 11, 2026
Hurst Conference Center – Hurst, Texas
All-day workshop • Lunch included

Register Now – https://www.ntrw.org/p/north-texas–two–step–conference.html
Limited Seats Available

JUNE-JULY

Romancing the Page: Workshopping Your Romance Novel 10-Week Intensive with Amanda Arista (Zoom) starts Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026

This 10-week online writing workshop invites students to craft the backbone of an original romance novel or screenplay by exploring the classic romance story arc—from the Meet Cute through the Happily Ever After. Each week, students will examine a different stage of falling in love, using examples from literature, film, and beloved romance stories to illuminate the timeless patterns that make readers’ hearts soar. Any love story is welcome, from contemporary to comedy to romantasy.

Romancing the Page: Workshopping Your Romance Novel 10-Week Intensive with Amanda Arista (Zoom) starts Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026

Thank you for coming to my lectures at DFW Con 2023.

Here are the PDFs of my presentations:

Voice for DFWCon 2023

Wicked Intentions- DFWCon 2023

If you liked this lecture, I’m also teaching 6-week online classes with Rosemont Writer’s Studio:

StoryBuilding- walking through the fundamentals of building a story

Romancing the Novel- learning structure and starting to write romance novels.

StoryWeaving- a deep-dive into creating and weaving subplots into an already developed story.

Hope to see you again soon and Happy Writing!

Hello All!

Thank you for attending my two lectures at RWA this weekend.

RWA 2022- Stirring up Subplots

RWA- Building a Better world

As promised, there are the two PDFs of my lectures.

Take a look around while you are here and if you guys ever need a lecturer, I’m here!

Keep writing!

Amanda Arista

She’s BACK!

After a hiatus away, Violet Jordan is ready for you to join her on her epic quest to save Dallas.

Get them in paperback or ebook at your favorite vendor now!

Well, we are still releasing the Diaries of Violet Jordan. This month, CLAWS and EFFECT is available now!

Once Violet Jordan took down Haverty, the Primo of the city, she thought life was going to get better. After four assassination attempts, she’s thinking not so much. Haverty’s pack needs a new leader and she’s just about to run out of reasons why she’s not right for the job. Besides, having loyal followers would definitely help her fight off whoever’s out for her blood. Especially since her boyfriend is always busy playing White Hat to every Wanderer across the country.

So now Violet just needs to figure out how to mentor new shifters, run a pack, keep her “real” job, and have some sort of personal life. Guess it’s all in a day’s work for this writer-by-day / panther-by-night.

Claws and Effect: Paperback and eBook Available every where!

https://books2read.com/u/mdDlPZ

Links Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and Barnes and Noble.

Read Chapter one HERE

After ten years, the cat is back!

Welcome to the series that started it all: Diaries of an Urban Panther.

Violet Jordan thought the fairy tales her mother wove were just a way to get Violet to sleep, not a way to prepare her for the apocalypse she is the key to preventing. When she becomes a midnight snack for werepanther Spencer Haverty, his infectious bite invokes the first element of her destiny. When Violet’s budding instincts allow her to save a boy’s life, she realizes this new gig may come with perks: a slimmer figure, the attention of a handsome Guardian, and insights into her future embedded in her mother’s stories. But as push comes to claws, can Violet make the fatal strike against the men threatening her new family, her new home and her first boyfriend in ages?

Sound good?

If so you can pick up a copy through your favorite vendor here.

GOODREADS GIVEAWAY!

I’m giving away 10 Diaries Prize packs to lucky winners, including a signed book and other Violet Jordan approved goodies!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Diaries of an Urban Panther

by Amanda Arista

Giveaway ends September 07, 2021.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Ends Sept 7th!

Hey- I did it again!

Enjoy the continued adventures of Merci Lanard in THE TRUTH ABOUT BLOOD!

Release in eBook and Paperback on August 4th from Amazon

PREORDER NOW

*******

As an investigative journalist, Merci Lanard always gets her story but she doesn’t always get the truth she wants.

After discovering her mother passed along a demon lineage, Merci goes to her mother’s active retirement community to ask the tough questions about their blood, their power, and the truth about her father’s death.

Instead of answers, she is gifted a dead body and a plea to find out what happened. Since Philly is peaceful and things aren’t exactly perfect with Rafe, she stays in New Haven to hunt down a killer and answers about herself.

Navigating wakes and themed parties, Merci finds herself at home with drug rings and a conniving political arena threatening her mother’s community of Wanderers. But as another body puts Merci in jail, she needs to draw on her own community to help- Rafe.

As she fully realizes the power of what her mother has built and the dark side of that, she finds the truth behind the killings, the truth about family, and the truth about the real power of her blood.

Its happening! I have a new book coming out January 21, 2020!

Available from AMAZON!

For a quick preview: Click here for Chapter One!

As an investigative journalist, Merci Lanard has an uncanny knack for getting the truth out of people, a talent she uses to expose the real story behind her city’s most gruesome crimes.

Until one night, when her partner, Ethan, is killed.

Reeling from shock and grief, Merci vows to track down his murderer. As she starts digging, she meets Ethan’s estranged brother, Rafe, who agrees to work with Merci to find his brother’s killer. She soon discovers Ethan had been hiding things from her, mainly that he was a Shifter and had a whole life in a supernatural world she knew nothing about.

A Shifter himself, Rafe introduces Merci to magic she never knew existed. As they work together to uncover hidden connections between Ethan’s murder and a series of strange dead bodies, they find themselves in the crosshairs of a turf war for the soul of the city.

If Merci is to have any hope of saving her city, she will have to face the truth about this war, the truth about this new magical world, and the truth about who she truly is.

Hello All,

In 2017, I did a series of posts at the Supernatural Underground entitled “The Things I Carry” as i reflected on the ideas, tropes, and practices that I carried with me as a writer. Here are they are presented as one series.

Jan 2017: Things I choose to Carry

Feb 2017: And now I’m just dating myself

March 2017: “If the apocalypse comes, beep me”

April 2017: What do you sacrifice?

May 2017: A new meaning to Fight Club

June 2017: Love is messy, love is kind…wait. That’s not how is goes.

August 2017: Family isn’t about blood

Oct 2017: EDC- Every Day Carry: Writerly addition

Nov 2017: Not your mother’s Meat Loaf

So for 2015, I wanted to focus on authenticity. Authentic to ourselves, authentic to our characters. We are going to get down to the nitty, gritty, truth of it all and be better us’s, uses, us-s. And maybe learn some grammar.

Jan 2015: Be Excellent to yourself

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/01/be-excellent-to-yourself-thank-you-bill.html

Feb 2015: S’more truth about sex, please

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/02/smore-truth-about-sex-please.html

March 2015: How do I do it: Equal parts passion, truth, love and coffee

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/03/how-i-do-it-equal-parts-passion-truth.html

April 2015: The Messy Art of Life

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-messy-art-of-life.html

May 2015: Its hard to type on an emotional roller coaster

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/05/its-hard-to-type-on-emotional-roller.html

June 2015: Apology letter to my muse

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/06/apology-letter-to-my-muse.html

July 2015: Alone is not Lonely

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/07/alone-is-not-lonely.html

Sept 2015: Ode to my new idol

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/09/ode-to-my-new-idol.html

Oct 2015: A writer’s worst fear

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-writers-worst-fear.html

November 2015: Can’t post: Nano-ing!!!

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/11/cant-post-nano-ing.html

December 2015: The word no one can say but everyone searches for

http://supernaturalunderground.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-word-no-one-can-say-but-everyone.html