A Chat with Taryn Skipper

Published January 20, 2026

by Deborah L. Brewer 

It’s once again that time of year when avid gardeners study their catalogs in anticipation of the wonders of spring. Likewise, Pikes Peak Writers peruse the PPWC session schedule on Sched.com to decide which ones to attend at our annual April conference. Yes, this year, our presenters will include some perennial favorites—Chris Mandeville, Stant Litore, Carol Berg, and more. Also, some presenters you may not have had the opportunity to learn from before, like author and illustrator Taryn Skipper.

Meet Taryn

Author/artist Taryn Skipper’s publications include her science fiction novel for young adults, Between Tungsten and Gold (Sept. 2025, Splinter Press), picture and activity books for children, short stories and poetry in anthologies, cover art, and a decade of commissioned portraits and paintings. She enjoys presenting and volunteering at writing events and conferences and sits on the Storymakers Guild board of directors. She holds degrees in Philosophy and International Relations. Outside of writing, she loves to travel and hike the Colorado Rockies around her with her family.

Q & A

Debby: Welcome, Taryn. Thank you for joining us in Writing from the Peak. At PPWC 2026, you’ll be presenting several sessions, one of which is on time management for creatives. Since it’s January, and many of us are planning our writing for the year, could you give us a sneak peek, a time-wise tip to set us on the right course?

Taryn: I don’t have time for that, sorry.

Kidding, of course! One of my favorite tips comes from Laura Vandercam’s 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think. We authors tend to set daily word count or progress goals, but life makes accomplishing a daily streak of anything (other than interruptions) nearly impossible. It’s okay to step back from your 24-hour schedule and look at your time in larger blocks, such as the 168-hour week, and give yourself a little more breathing room. And if you’re going to set daily or other difficult goals, build in a plan to give yourself grace by celebrating along the way.

Debby: One of your conference sessions is on book clubs for writers. Our blog readers know I won’t want to miss that. Is there a book or two from your reading list that you can recommend?

Taryn: One of our recent picks was No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister. This is a collection of interconnected short stories examining the impact of a novel by a fictional debut author. It’s a validating read as a writer. Another book I love to recommend is Beneath the Wide Silk Sky, by Emily Inouye Huey. It’s a timely YA historical fiction following a Japanese-American family during the lead-up to their internment. Emily, whose parents were born in an internment camp, handles a heavy topic with beauty and grace in a story appealing to YA readers while making it terrifyingly easy to see how such a dark spot in our history could have come about.

Debby: PPW is always looking for presenters, not only for our yearly conference, but also for our virtual Write Brain sessions. For some, the idea of teaching is intimidating. How do you decide which topics to teach? What type of preparation does it require? What makes it worthwhile for you?

Taryn: When I first began presenting, I started with a couple of topics I had studied thoroughly on my own. That made taking the leap to teaching others less intimidating. Having survived my first classes, I branched out to topics I knew but wanted to dig deeper into. Proposing a class about something I want to learn better forces me to really dive in. Probably the most helpful way to become comfortable teaching is to practice in front of your writing group or willing friends to work out the kinks and jitters. My favorite benefit to presenting is meeting so many amazing members of the writing and publishing community.

Debby: You are both an artist and a writer. I imagine attention to detail benefits both pursuits. Are there other ways the processes of creating visual art and writing overlap?

Taryn: Absolutely. There are parallels between plotting/pantsing and the way an artist might approach a complicated piece, and in the importance of seeking and knowing how to implement feedback and critique, if the goal is to improve. Among other similarities, it’s a struggle to paint the “boring parts” and make them just as necessary as the focal points in the same way that you might want to focus on big, pivotal scenes in your manuscript instead of working on making the journey between those points interesting.

Debby: Many of our writers will be interested in your picture books for children. The Bear, the Box and the Boy, illustrated in your charming watercolors, was translated into Spanish, Russian, and Chinese. What was that experience like for you? Do you have advice for other author-illustrators self-publishing children’s books?

Taryn: I was thrilled to have translations done of my books. When I wrote them, I had part of a Masters Degree in Multilingual Education. I made them bilingual to help both English and non-English speakers learn. I used native speakers as translators and editors. I decided I didn’t want to teach in a classroom, but these are still popular with schoolteachers, which makes me happy. My biggest advice to those self-publishing children’s books is to seek out as much feedback and critique as your heart can take (and then a little more). Authors excited to release their book babies into the world sometimes want to close their eyes and just publish. But your future self will thank you profusely for catching mistakes or pieces that aren’t up to your own quality standards early, rather than later down the road. I know it’s exhausting, but extra scrutiny now will help your end product shine brighter and longer.

Debby: Between Tungsten and Gold, your science fiction novel for young adults, came out from Splinter Press in September 2025. The cover is gorgeous. Did you work on it yourself or with another artist? Tell us a little about the novel.

Taryn: My publisher told me they were looking to hire a cover artist and then realized I do art. They asked me whether I’d be interested. I told them I definitely would, but I am not a designer at all. I didn’t want to come up with the concept, and asked them to tell me their vision, and exactly what they wanted. I did have opinions on colors, which happened to be the same as they were thinking. I made some initial artwork, and it was close, but they had some changes and tweaks, so I reworked it. I absolutely love the end result and the way they put it all together on the cover with the title and other elements. The decision not to self-publish this book was difficult due to my loss of control over how it would look, but I could not be happier. They also let me create small black and white drawings to be included at the end of each chapter, which was a pure joy for me.

Learn more about Taryn here: https://skipperbooks.com

Taryn’s PPWC 2026 sessions are listed here, on Sched.com: https://ppwc2026.sched.com/speaker/taryngskipper.

Find Pikes Peak Writers Conference 2026 here: https://conference.pikespeakwriters.org

Deborah joined Pikes Peak Writers a decade ago, seeking help writing a mystery. When the novel was completed, she stayed for the camaraderie. An editor for several of the PPW anthologies, she writes poetry and short stories, and is the Associate Editor for the PPW blog Writing from the Peak.