book inc is excited to announce that two experienced writers, Kaecey McCormick and Erin Mayes, will be the Peer Artist Leaders* for the 2027 Novel Incubator, our yearlong program for writers ready to take their initial story ideas all the way to a first draft.

Kaecey McCormick is a Bay Area poet and fiction writer, former Poet Laureate of Cupertino, California, and author of four poetry collections and chapbooks, with work appearing in Poet Lore, The Baltimore Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and other literary journals and magazines. 

Erin Mayes is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area whose work has been published in The Coachella Review, Cetera, Stonecrop Magazine, and Windmill: The Hofstra Journal of Literature and Art.

As applications are rolling in for our 2027 programs, we sat with Kaecey and Erin to learn more about their relationship to fiction and what they hope to bring to this latest cohort of book writers.

book inc: How did each of your journeys into writing begin, and where have they brought you today?

KAECEY: I was a HUGE reader as a kid. And I LOVED telling stories. In elementary school, I’d make them up and tell them to my sisters at home or my friends at recess. We’d spend our time acting them out, so storytelling was part of my life pretty early on. I veered away from creative writing in college, but after I had my children, all of those picture books helped me fall back in love with storytelling! In 2016, I earned my MFA and gradually became more involved in the writing world, first teaching college English, then sending out my work for publication, and finally teaching creative writing in the community and through writing schools. I’m still sending short stories and poems out into the world, but in 2025, I joined Novel Incubator and finished my first, fully functional novel draft. I’d tried before, but this was the first time I was able to realize my vision of a novel on the page. I’m now gearing up to submit book one to agents while revising book two, and I’m thrilled to start book three in January! 

ERIN: I began my writing career as a journalist and worked as a newspaper reporter for many years. But I’ve always loved creative writing, and I spent many years writing personal essays before finally delving into novel writing. I wrote one very, very bad novel before I decided a few years ago to pursue an MFA in creative writing. Since then, I’ve been swimming in the fiction pool, writing short stories and working on a nearly complete science fiction thriller.

book inc: What draws you to fiction specifically? What does the form let you do that other kinds of writing don’t?

KAECEY: I majored in anthropology and psychology in college, and I became fascinated by just how much of “being human” we understand through stories. Fiction may not be “factual,” but it can hold an enormous amount of truth about how people respond to one another, how they make choices, and how they navigate whatever life throws at them. That’s what draws me to fiction as both a reader and a writer. It gives me the freedom to enter situations, perspectives, and emotional territory I might never venture into in my own life and ask, What would a person do here? Why? What might happen next? And would I do the same? In my own work, I’ve found myself interested in what it means to look back at an earlier version of yourself (the person who made mistakes, hurt people, or simply didn’t know what they know now) and figure out if acceptance is possible without excusing away what happened. I love that fiction lets me explore these questions without needing to arrive at a “clean” answer. 

ERIN: Fiction is such a wonderful escape from real life, and always has been for me. And since I was a child, I’ve been inventing stories, always thinking: “What if …?” Fiction is also a great way to be vulnerable without being overtly vulnerable, as memoirists must! And it’s a wonderful way to explore the human condition. Why are people the way they are? Of course, that’s a challenge too, to portray people in a way that feels authentic for the reader. This is perhaps the biggest challenge in writing.

book inc: As you head into your novel-length project, what habits or practices do you expect will help you keep momentum, and where do you think you’ll struggle?

KAECEY: Great question! I do better when I hold myself accountable, and that’s one of the things that makes Novel Incubator so appealing. The daily Slack check-ins, virtual meetings every other week, the deadlines built into the reading rounds—all of that helps me stay organized and keep moving forward. I’ve also spent years building a daily writing practice. Some days I may only have five minutes, but I always try to put pen to page, and I’m hoping that consistency carries into my project. Where I struggle is with the sheer size of the process. Writing a book can be a long slog. You have to “live” inside the same story for months (even years!). I suffer from a serious case of shiny-object syndrome: the next idea is always more exciting to me. So part of the challenge will be letting myself be excited by those ideas without abandoning the book I’ve already committed to.   

ERIN: I love to set aside time each weekday for writing. When I do this, I create a groove that I naturally want to sink into, whether I’m feeling terribly inspired to write or not. I do very well with a schedule and a taskmaster, if available. If not, I do tend to flail. This is why the Novel Incubator will be so valuable for me. As I learned in the Book Revision Lab, knowing there are goals for each session keeps me on task, and having a group to bounce ideas off of has been invaluable.

book inc: Everyone hits walls while drafting. What do you imagine your go-to move will be when you get stuck or lose the thread?

KAECEY: Ah, yes. The wall. I’m sadly very familiar with it! For me, physical movement is really important when I get stuck. I live in the foothills, and I’m lucky to have trails and parks close to my home, so hiking, unplugging, and getting outside into nature helps me reset. I’ve found that the questions I’m wrestling with usually keep working in the background. They bounce around, get mixed up with other thoughts, and often the solution is there when I come back to the work the next day or so. It can also help to talk things out with my partner. He’s a good sounding board, and I usually manage to talk my way toward an answer with him nodding along or asking a question at the right time. Journaling and freewriting help, too. Sometimes I need to get parts of the story out without trying to make them fit into the manuscript. Giving myself that separate space to think on the page can help me see what the story is actually asking for, what might work, and what doesn’t feel right at all. 

ERIN: I’ve found that in moments of blockage, journaling is extremely helpful. I’ll write out the problem I’m facing and then begin to brainstorm solutions. Often, I’ll hit on something that works. It also helps to go for a walk or take a shower (so many light bulb moments happen in the shower!). During the Novel Incubator, I expect the group itself will also be a great resource, as peers can discuss difficult moments and possible solutions together.

book inc: As Peer Artist Leaders drafting alongside the cohort, what are you each most excited about heading into 2027?

KAECEY: I’m excited to be moving on to a new story! But even more, I’m excited to start from scratch on day one alongside a group of writers who are just as committed to seeing their projects through. Writing can be such a solitary process. So much of the work happens alone, between just you and the page. It’s easy to lose perspective or momentum along the way. What I love about Novel Incubator is that you’re doing the individual work within a community. We’ll all be building different books, but we’ll be moving through the same stages together. And we’ll share the excitement, frustration, breakthroughs … and probably commiserate as we hit a few walls along the way, too. I’m especially looking forward to seeing everyone’s stories take shape over the year and being part of that process while I build my own novel right alongside them. I can’t wait to get started!

ERIN: I am thrilled to finally put on the page an idea that was born while I ate a slice of pizza in a restaurant that was blaring ‘90s rock in 2023. It’s a time-travel thriller (If you’d told me twenty years ago I’d be obsessed with writing sci-fi as a middle-aged mom, I wouldn’t have believed it)! I can’t wait to use all of the amazing tools we’ll be learning about in the incubator to build an engaging story, and best of all, this often lonely enterprise will be undertaken with a group of like-minded souls, all on the same journey.

Thank you, Kaecey and Erin, for talking with us! We can’t wait to see what novels emerge from the 2027 Novel Incubator.

*What do we mean when we say “Peer Artist Leader”? Peer Artist Leaders, or PALs, are experienced writers who co-facilitate book inc’s programs. They work on their own book projects alongside participants, creating a supportive, non-hierarchical environment where writers at all stages of their journey can thrive.