Kristin Bair O’Keeffe is the author of THIRSTY. She is also a happy mom, an engaging teacher who believes in “telling the best story you can…believing in your writing…and working your arse off,” a fierce advocate for the end of domestic violence, and a writer who spends as much time as possible in “writerhead.”

WordHustler sat down with Kristin to get her advice about making sure your draft is ready to be sent out, the double-duty authors have to pull in order to get their books out there, and why chocolate + keyboard = no good. Read on to discover how to quench your own thirst for publishing success, with advice from an ingenious writer who knows how to slake (and make) it!

WordHustler: You have a varied writing background, including being published in Poets & Writers Magazine, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Baltimore Review, San Diego Family Magazine, The Gettysburg Review…what do you consider your first big break, writing-wise?

Kristin Bair O’Keeffe: I’m a not a big break kind of writer; I’m of the slow-grow variety. I’ve been nurturing my career poem by poem, story by story, since I was eight years old. With each piece I’ve published (and the many I’ve written but haven’t published), I’ve learned a little more about writing, my voice, what I like to write about, what I believe in, the world…and the business of selling my work. The wonderful, amazing, cumulative effect of all this is my debut novel THIRSTY.

WH: An early draft of your novel, THIRSTY, was actually your graduate thesis, correct? Had you planned on trying to get it published as a novel while still working on it as a thesis? Had you published any fiction previously?

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Mashable has a great article up about the 100 Best Writers using Twitter today that is worthy of checking out. In the ever-changing web world of marketing what you write, the authors who use Twitter to both entertain and stay relevant are on top of their game. Read the article HERE.

Speaking of all things Tweet-able, WordHustler’s Twitter is up and running and we’d love you to connect with us! You can find us @wordhustler or check out our page HERE.

Thousands of writing songbirds tweeting our name? We can’t wait to hear it! Tweet on, Hustlers!

According to MediaBistro’s GalleyCat blog, publishers like W. W. Norton are the latest to jump on the Twitter trend. Twitter, for the uninitiated, is a text-based social networking tool that allows users to send and receive frequent, micro-blog updates from their friends. (See one Belgian man’s Twitter friend-graph below. That guy’s birthday parties must be insane.)

Twitter, in recent months, has been sidling into the advertising/publicity world and is being employed by companies looking to boost profiles or garner followers. One such company is stalwart publishing house W.W. Norton, who has set up their account HERE and are gathering fellow Twitter-ees. But what will this constant stream of chatter do for the publishing world? And is there such as thing as too much info?

Read more on GalleyCat HERE.

Do you have some information sharing to do? Why not submit a soul-baring poem to the 2008 Omnidawn Poetry Contest? First prize is $2000 and the deadline is June 30th so hurry! WordHustler wants to help you get your inner thoughts out there to the world…maybe you’ll garner a few followers of your own.